Bögels, Sara, Kendrick, Kobin H. orcid.org/0000-0002-6656-1439 and Levinson, Stephen C. (2015) Never Say No … How the Brain Interprets the Pregnant Pause in Conversation. PLoS ONE. e0145474. ISSN 1932-6203
Abstract
In conversation, negative responses to invitations, requests, offers, and the like are more likely to occur with a delay–conversation analysts talk of them as dispreferred. Here we examine the contrastive cognitive load ‘yes’ and ‘no’ responses make, either when relatively fast (300 ms after question offset) or delayed (1000 ms). Participants heard short dialogues contrasting in speed and valence of response while having their EEG recorded. We found that a fast ‘no’ evokes an N400-effect relative to a fast ‘yes’; however, this contrast disappeared in the delayed responses. 'No' responses, however, elicited a late frontal positivity both if they were fast and if they were delayed. We interpret these results as follows: a fast ‘no’ evoked an N400 because an immediate response is expected to be positive–this effect disappears as the response time lengthens because now in ordinary conversation the probability of a ‘no’ has increased. However, regardless of the latency of response, a ‘no’ response is associated with a late positivity, since a negative response is always dispreferred. Together these results show that negative responses to social actions exact a higher cognitive load, but especially when least expected, in immediate response.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2015 Bögels et al |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (York) > Language and Linguistic Science (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 10 May 2017 10:40 |
Last Modified: | 16 Oct 2024 13:46 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0145474 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0145474 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:116187 |