Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation

Ten languages, one timing system: everyone avoids overlap and minimises silence, and the differences are smaller than they feel.

Stivers, T. et al. (2009). Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(26), 10587–10592.

Type

Journal article

Find it

doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0903616106

Checked

Against the abstract, 15 September 2026

Why it is on the list

Across ten languages, conversations avoided overlapping talk and kept gaps short, and average gaps stayed within 250 ms of the cross-language mean. The authors suggest people are sensitive to small tempo differences and experience them as large differences in style. Read it for how precise the timing is, and for why a slightly different tempo can feel like a different personality.