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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20474 |
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| _version_ | 1866918140961619968 |
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| author | Zhang, Kaixiang Zhang, Justine Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, Cristian |
| author_facet | Zhang, Kaixiang Zhang, Justine Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, Cristian |
| contents | An intrinsic aspect of every conversation is the way talk-time is shared between multiple speakers. Conversations can be balanced, with each speaker claiming a similar amount of talk-time, or imbalanced when one talks disproportionately. Such overall distributions are the consequence of continuous negotiations between the speakers throughout the conversation: who should be talking at every point in time, and for how long? In this work we introduce a computational framework for quantifying both the conversation-level distribution of talk-time between speakers, as well as the lower-level dynamics that lead to it. We derive a typology of talk-time sharing dynamics structured by several intuitive axes of variation. By applying this framework to a large dataset of video-chats between strangers, we confirm that, perhaps unsurprisingly, different conversation-level distributions of talk-time are perceived differently by speakers, with balanced conversations being preferred over imbalanced ones, especially by those who end up talking less. Then we reveal that -- even when they lead to the same level of overall balance -- different types of talk-time sharing dynamics are perceived differently by the participants, highlighting the relevance of our newly introduced typology. Finally, we discuss how our framework offers new tools to designers of computer-mediated communication platforms, for both human-human and human-AI communication. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_20474 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Time is On My Side: Dynamics of Talk-Time Sharing in Video-chat Conversations Zhang, Kaixiang Zhang, Justine Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, Cristian Computation and Language An intrinsic aspect of every conversation is the way talk-time is shared between multiple speakers. Conversations can be balanced, with each speaker claiming a similar amount of talk-time, or imbalanced when one talks disproportionately. Such overall distributions are the consequence of continuous negotiations between the speakers throughout the conversation: who should be talking at every point in time, and for how long? In this work we introduce a computational framework for quantifying both the conversation-level distribution of talk-time between speakers, as well as the lower-level dynamics that lead to it. We derive a typology of talk-time sharing dynamics structured by several intuitive axes of variation. By applying this framework to a large dataset of video-chats between strangers, we confirm that, perhaps unsurprisingly, different conversation-level distributions of talk-time are perceived differently by speakers, with balanced conversations being preferred over imbalanced ones, especially by those who end up talking less. Then we reveal that -- even when they lead to the same level of overall balance -- different types of talk-time sharing dynamics are perceived differently by the participants, highlighting the relevance of our newly introduced typology. Finally, we discuss how our framework offers new tools to designers of computer-mediated communication platforms, for both human-human and human-AI communication. |
| title | Time is On My Side: Dynamics of Talk-Time Sharing in Video-chat Conversations |
| topic | Computation and Language |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20474 |