Svetlana Gerakaki will defend her thesis Wednesday 8th of July 2020

As with all defences, it is a public event and everybody is welcome to join.  Due to the restrictions surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak, and the corresponding limitations regarding number of guests allowed in the Academiezaal, the event will also be accessible via live-stream.

In conversation people take turns changing from listener- to speaker-role and back to listener again. Research suggests that people are fast in doing so. So fast that one would assume that they start to plan their response, while still listening. In her thesis, Svetlana Gerakaki investigated whether people listen less well, when they have to prepare speech at the same time. And if so, whether predictable content can make listening easier, despite concurrent speech preparation.

Taken together, the results of her experiments suggest that when people start planning their response while still listening, they listen less well than when they just focus on listening. Predictable content may partly assist in making listening easier. Interestingly, focusing more on listening than on speaking, causes people to make more errors in speaking.