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The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

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4. Conversation <strong>Tells</strong><br />

<strong>The</strong> most obvious thing about conversations is that people<br />

take turns. It's unusual for more than one person to be<br />

speaking at a time, and when it does happen for any<br />

length <strong>of</strong> time it's because the conversation has temporarily<br />

broken down. <strong>The</strong> reason why we take turns is<br />

because <strong>of</strong> the limitations <strong>of</strong> our brains: we cannot talk<br />

and listen to someone else at the same time. Psychologists<br />

who study conversation have found that people are<br />

remarkably skilled at taking turns. <strong>The</strong>y have discovered<br />

that the time that elapses between one person completing<br />

their turn and the next person starting to talk can be so<br />

brief as to be almost non-existent - in some instances it's<br />

less than 50 thousandths <strong>of</strong> a second! <strong>The</strong>se are called<br />

'smooth transitions', because the switch between one<br />

speaker and the next is so seamless. 1<br />

<strong>The</strong> universal rule <strong>of</strong> conversations is 'one person at a<br />

time', and although most conversations follow this rule,<br />

there are times when people speak at the same time and<br />

don't listen to each other. Some cases <strong>of</strong> 'overlap talk'<br />

arise because the listener is trying to interrupt in order to<br />

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