2024/03/13 by Bergey, Claire Augusta, DeDeo, Simon · 2 voices · 2 citations
#Computation and Language (cs.CL) #FOS: Biological sciences #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Information Theory (cs.IT) #Neurons and Cognition (q-bio.NC)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2403.08890
Conversation demands attention. Speakers must call words to mind, listeners must make sense of them, and both together must negotiate this flow of information, all in fractions of a second. We used large language models to study how this works in a large-scale dataset of English-language conversation, the CANDOR corpus. We provide a new estimate of the information density of unstructured conversation, of approximately 13 bits/second, and find significant effects associated with the cognitive load of both retrieving, and presenting, that information. We also reveal a role for backchannels -- the brief yeahs, uh-huhs, and mhmms that listeners provide -- in regulating the production of novelty: the lead-up to a backchannel is associated with declining information rate, while speech downstream rebounds to previous rates. Our results provide new insights into long-standing theories of how we respond to fluctuating demands on cognitive resources, and how we negotiate those demands in partnership with others.