Dynamic roles of word-based and pitch-based cues in turn-medial and turn-final judgments

Previous research suggests that word- and pitch-based cues differ between turn-medial and turn-final utterances, and that listeners use these differences to anticipate turn completion. However, the relative roles of these cues in turn-holding vs turn-yielding judgments remain unclear. To address this, we tested 26 young native English listeners on turn-status judgments using turn-medial or turn-final phrases, with or without selectively removed pitch and lexical information. Results showed that for turn-medial stimuli, accuracy decreased from 88% (words and pitch) to 55% (neither). For turn-final stimuli, accuracy ranged from 76% (with words) to 53% (neither), showing different cue dependencies across turn positions.