Pause Length and Differences in Cognitive State Attribution in Native and Non-Native Speakers

Speech pauses between turns of conversations are crucial for assessing conversation partners’ cognitive states, such as their knowledge, confidence and willingness to grant requests; in general, speakers making longer regarded less apt willing. However, it is unclear if the interpretation pause length mediated by accent interactants, particular native versus non-native accents. We hypothesized that listeners more tolerant towards long made than those speakers. This because, speakers, might be result prolonged processing when planning an answer a language rather lack or willingness. Our experiment, which 100 Polish-speaking raters rated Polish on willingness, showed this hypothesis was confirmed perceived only; were equally willing requests, irrespective inter-turn durations, whereas short pauses. For knowledge confidence, we did not find mediating effect accent; both knowledgeable confident One possible reason difference our findings requests socially engaging directly relevant interpersonal cooperative interactions reflects competence but cooperativeness. Overall, study shows (non-)native accents can influence states signaled different may have important implications intercultural communication settings where topics negotiated