A Study in
Cross-Cultural Interpretations
of Back-Channeling Behavior
Yaffa Al Bayyari
Nigel Ward
The University of Texas at El Paso
Department of Computer Science
February 22, 2008
Meeting of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research
Back-Channeling
•
•
•
•
•
Short utterances: uh-huh, yeah, mm-hm ...
Show active listening
Frequent: ~4 per minute (English, Arabic)
Below conscious awareness
A turn-taking function
2
Misunderstandings are Common
in Cross-Cultural Communication
culturedependent
interpretations
3
What Causes Problems?
Language-Dependent
Culture-Dependent
Universal
smiles
simple
emotions
non-lexical
utterances
complex
emotions
words
emblematic
gestures
?????????????????? turn-taking mechanisms ??????????????????
Culture-dependent behaviors that we think are universal
can cause deep misunderstandings.
4
Cultural Differences in
Back-Channeling
• frequency (Maynard 89)
• words and non-lexicals used
• timing (this study)
– typically in response to cues by the other
– but the cues differ ...
5
Prosodic Cues for Back-Channels
English
pitch
26th percentile
>110 ms
time
Arabic
< 500 ms
pitch
brief pause
>40 ms, with slope > .7% every 10 ms
time
“When you hear such a cue, respond with a back-channel”
is a good description of listener behavior.
Game 1: listen to the back-channels
Game 2: listen to the cue; what emotional value do you perceive?
6
Initial Hypotheses
Pitch downdash
perceived as
Arab
subjects
American
subjects
a cue for a
back-channel
response
yes
no
an expression
of negative
affect
no
yes
7
Experiment 1 Stimuli
lead-in
prosodic cue
downdash
response
back-channel
cadence
upturn
full turn
silence
subjects asked to judge the naturalness of each response, given the context
resynthesized to obscure the words, retaining pitch contours
Participants
• 18 naive American-English speakers
– students from an introductory CS class
– mostly Spanish-English bilinguals
– no knowledge of Arabic
• 18 Arabic speakers
– 7 living in El Paso Texas, 11 in Qatar
– some to total knowledge of English
• 18 exposed American-English speakers
– with about 25 minutes of training in this aspect of Arabic,
several months before
9
Results of Experiment 1
Ratings of the naturalness of the various pairings
5
4.5
4.7
4.3
4.5
4.2
4.1
4
3.7
naturalness
3.5
3
other pairings
2.5
downslope+BC
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
Arab
N aive American
different*
E xposed American
different*
* matched-pairs t-test
10
Experiment 2
downdash
cadence
upturn
Subjects were asked to judge the emotional state:
“does the speaker sound more positive or more negative?”
11
Experiment 2 Results
6
5
5
4.5
4.2
4.2
4
4
3.2
positive feeling 3
controls
downslope
2
1
0
Arab
Naive American
Exposed
American
different*
different*
* matched-pairs t-test
12
Summary of Experiments 1&2
Pitch downdash
perceived as
Arab
subjects
American
subjects
a cue for a
back-channel
response
yes
no
significantly
different
an expression
of negative
affect
no
yes
significantly
different
13
What Causes Problems?
Language Dependent/
Culture Dependent
Universal
smiles
simple
emotions
non-lexical
utterances
complex
emotions
words
emblematic
gestures
back-channeling
Behaviors that are culture-dependent, but that people think
are universal, can cause deep misunderstandings.
14
Implication and Follow-Up Question
Imagine an Arab happens to use this cue while
talking to an American (in Arabic or English)
• The American is likely to misinterpret it,
without suspecting the danger
(Experiments 1 and 2)
• The Arab may feel the American is not
being a cooperative listener ...
(Experiment 3)
15
Follow-on Hypotheses
Learners of Arabic who back-channel better
will be judged as
• knowing Arabic better
• being nicer
• being more socially effective
and the effect sizes will be large
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Stimuli
Well Timed Back-Channeling
Well Pronounced
Greeting
Poorly Timed Back-Channeling
Poorly Pronounced
Greeting
Absent Back-Channeling
Absent Greeting
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Results
How well does the listener know Arabic?
5.5
5.2
knowledge of Arabic
5
4
4.4
3.8
4.3
3.8
6
5.3
3.4
no greeting
3
sloppy greeting
good greeting
2
4
4.7
4.1
3.7
no g reeting
sloppy g reeting
g ood g reeting
2
1
0
0
back-channeling 2
5.3
3
1
no back-channelling back-channeling 1
4.7
4.2
4
5.7
5.4
5.3
5
social effectiveness
6
Is this person likely to succeed in making someone want to help him?
no back-channelling back-channeling 1
back-channeling 2
significantly different (matched-pairs t-tests, 54 pairs)
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Conclusions
• The prosody of back-channeling is not universal.
(experiment 1).
• It is worthwhile for learners to master its meaning.
(experiment 3).
So they should be taught it, and other turn-taking
patterns, and also in other languages.
• Americans perceive it as negative, but even a brief
exposure reduces this. (experiment 2)
So people likely to hear even sound-bites of Arabs
should also be taught about it.
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A Study in
Cross-Cultural Interpretations
of Back-channeling Behavior
Yaffa Al Bayyari
Nigel Ward
Thank You
February 22, 2008
Meeting of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research
The Phenomenon
• Back-channel feedback happens when
– One person is explaining something
– The other produces short response indicating he is
paying attention
• Definition
–
–
–
–
Responds directly to an utterance of the speaker
Is optional
Does not require acknowledgement by the speaker
Does not interrupt the flow of the conversation
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Predictive Value of the Cue
Corpus-based study found that these times are
commonly indicated by a prosodic feature complex
which includes a steep pitch downslope, “downdash”
(Ward & Al Bayyari, 2006, 2007)
• Coverage = 43%
• Accuracy = 13%
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Experiment 3
• Stimuli preparation
Good Greeting
– 9 audio fragments
Poor Greeting
– 11 sec conversation between
Arabic speaker and a learner No Greeting
– Greeting not synthesized
– Direction-giving and BC synthesized
Good BC
Poor BC
No BC
• Subjects were asked to judge the Arabic learner
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Previous Work
• In Arabic:
– Statements & wh-questions end with a falling
pitch
(Kulk et al., 2005; Eldin & Rajouani, 1999; Rifaat, 2005)
– yes-no questions generally end with a pitch
rise
(Eldin & Rajouani, 1999; El-Hassan, 1988)
– Back-channels function pragmatically in
Arabic much as in English
• Do not always convey understanding
• Can overlap the speaker’s talk
(Ola Mohamed Hafez, 1991)
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Results of Experiment 2 – cont.
Answers to question “write 2 or 3 adjectives describing
the speaker” by English speakers:
For the downslope: half or more used “angry”, “scared”,
“sad” or “disgusted”
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Hypothesis
• The pitch downslope is a cue for back-channel
in Arabic, although it is not perceived as such by
speakers of American English
• The pitch downslope is perceived negatively by
American-English speakers but not by Arabic
speakers
• In Arabic good back-channeling matters & even
more than good pronunciation
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Does this person sound like a nice person?
7
5.8
6
5.4
5
5
4
4.3
3.3
4.9
4.6
3.6
3.7
no greeting
sloppy greeting
3
good greeting
2
1
0
no back-channelling
back-channeling 1
back-channeling 2
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Sharp pitch downslope
Most likely we’re gonna stay for a month and a week
OK
OK
To see how life is there and probably uncle & aunt are coming with us,
so it’ d be good chance for you to come visit us
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Masking
Original
Masked
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