Speaking in the presence of a competing talker
How do speakers cope with a competing talker? This study investigatedthe possibility that speakers are able to retime theircontributions to take advantages of temporal fluctuations in thebackground, reducing any adverse effects for an interlocutor.Speech was produced in quiet, competing talker, modulatednoise and stationary backgrounds, with and without a communicative task. An analysis of the timing of contributions relative to the background indicated a significantly reduced chance of overlapping for the modulated noise backgrounds relative to quiet, with competing speech resulting in the least overlap. Strong evidence for an active overlap avoidance strategy is presented.