The effects of guessing confidence on anticipatory behaviour in context understanding

Abstract

The study investigates the anticipatory behaviour in a word guessing experiment with Slovak L2 speakers of English of varying proficiency levels. The L2 speakers are trying to correctly identify the word that the interlocutor is hinting at with two consecutive cues as soon as they are confident enough to provide the answer. This created a connection between anticipation and guessing confidence. The effect of guessing confidence on the anticipatory behaviour is measured through the change in response latency of how quickly the guessers produce their guesses after listening to the cues. The aim is to study how the response latencies of the listeners are affected by their previous correct or incorrect guesses. The findings suggest that the correctness of guesses has a measurable impact on response latency.

Keywords

• communication anticipation
• response latency
• communication confidence
• l2 communication success