Auditory-Visual Speech Processing 2007 (AVSP2007) Kasteel Groenendaal, Hilvarenbeek, The Netherlands August 31 - September 3, 2007

Backchannels Revisited from a Multimodal Perspective

Roxane Bertrand, Gaëlle Ferré, Philippe Blache, Robert Espesser, Stéphane Rauzy

Laboratoire Parole et Langage, Aix-Marseille Université - CNRS (UMR 6057), Aix en Provence, France

Abstract In this study, we analyze the role of several linguistic cues (prosodic units, pitch contours, discourse markers, morphological categories, and gaze direction) in French turntaking face-to-face interactions. Specifically, we investigate vocal and gestural backchannel signals (BCs) produced by a recipient to show his active listening. We show that some particular pitch contours and discursive markers play a systematic role in inducing both gestural and vocal BCs. Conversely, morphological categories and gestural cues rather play a role for gestural BCs.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Bertrand, Roxane / Ferré, Gaëlle / Blache, Philippe / Espesser, Robert / Rauzy, Stéphane (2007): "Backchannels revisited from a multimodal perspective", In AVSP-2007, paper P09.