Conversational turn-taking - gah!

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I know having problems with turn-taking is common on the spectrum. I've been looking around for advice on how this actually tends to work in practice, but I've really only been finding advice on how to teach children with ASD the idea that you are supposed to take turns. No doubt useful, but I personally already knew this! I need to know concrete details on how this works in practice.

I have especially severe problems with this on the phone (indicating that I do pick up *some* turn taking related signals face to face, I suppose), with either unintentionally cutting the other person off before they're finished, or waiting too long - a very short moment the way I perceive it, but apparently jarring enough to the other person that they'll often go "Hello? Are you still there?"

Face to face I still have problems with this, even in one-on-one but especially in group conversations. I'll start talking and get cut off because apparently it wasn't my turn (and if asked, people seem to think I was the one who did the interrupting), or I'll end up waiting for my turn so long people assume I have nothing to say, when in fact there's often something I'm quite eager to inject into the conversation that I then never get to say, because, having missed my turn, the conversation then moves on well away from the subject my intended response was on...

Can anyone direct me to any material on precisely, concretely, just how adult NTs take turns when they talk? As I noted above, if I search for this as related to ASD I just find stuff intended to impart the "you are supposed to take turns" notion, nothing on exactly *how* the turn-taking works. If I leave out the ASD connection then I seem to find studies indicating that people of all cultures do take turns in a similar manner, but very little about exactly how. Are there specific expressions, gestures, changes in tone I should be alert to? If so, precisely what do they look/sound like?

You should look up an author named Deborah Tannen. She wrote a few books about conversational style to help explain why people with different conversational styles often have trouble understanding each other. I recommend "That's Not What I Meant! How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships." I think her style of writing can be helpful for people on the spectrum because she breaks down how to spot the "interrupting" style of conversation and how to communicate with those people versus the "long pausers" and how to communicate with those kinds instead. She purposefully describes the styles so that you can learn how to use them.

What could be happening is you might be trying out an "interrupting" style with a "long pauser" and accidentally offending them. This happens to NT people too, so it's not as big a deal as it probably feels to you. It just takes practice.

Thanks for the pointer to Deborah Tannen. I will see if I can get hold of any of her books, especially the one you mention. Perhaps it'll help me get some sense of direction in my practice; undirected practice I've had decades of without managing to get things as smooth as most people seem to.

(I know how you meant the statement, especially since you wrote it in conjunction with a concrete pointer to information to help me direct my efforts, so this isn't directed at you, but I can't resist noting that "it just takes practice" or worse, "you must not have had much practice/experience" is a pet peeve of mine. Oh, how many times I've heard that in regard to various social skills/habits I've spent my whole life working hard on...)

Salkin, the reason that you don't find info on this is that no one knows. It's intuitive to NTs, so they have no clue how to explain it to us. To start with, they have no clue that they're applying an intuitive knowledge, when they join a conversation, about how to do it. Same as when we join the highway from a side road, they're taking several factors into account, but they're totally unaware that they're doing this.

NTs don't debate to learn and reach a conclusion, they socialize to establish relations. It's more about form than content. So I think it's mostly a question of being able to juggle the context and what comments are appropriate to make in that context (one thing is a work lunch with your colleagues, another is a party with friends - if you make the wrong comment it'll often be seen as you "interrupting"), and the power relations between the participants in the conversation and your own power position in this group.

Other factors are also decisive:

Whose comment are you responding to - is this someone who is mostly attuned to her own buddies in the group and has several and will therefore likely not hear or be interested in your comment? Is this someone who's attuned mostly to those in power in the group? Is this someone who tends to respond to anyone?

Are you trying to interject a comment when the people in power / dominating the conversation are addressing each other's comments?

Are you making a comment on a subject the participants don't find you particularly knowledgeable/interesting about?

Are you being blind to the subtext, i.e. people are discussing one thing but in reality they're discussing another that you're not aware of, and you address the verbal content totally oblivious to its non-verbal significance at the moment?

In a conversation, people are actually DOING more than TALKING. They're establishing an image, forming an opinion on others, establishing closer connections to those they want to get closer to, etc. It's more about what people are doing rather than saying.

Moondust: thanks, that does explain a lot of things. I suspected the case might be something like this, and it goes a ways towards explaining why I find group conversations so bewildering.

I might actually have it easier than some. I believe the culture I live in is comparatively egalitarian. It's not really frowned upon very much if you butt into somebody else's conversation held in public so long as it's done in a halfway sensible manner and circumstances. For example, I was once seated next to two of my countrymen on a flight. They were discussing some point of trivia from a TV show, and I (very ASDishly) interjected "no, actually it's like this: [...]" They didn't mind one bit, and this seems to be the case in general, since there's any number of other examples I could offer involving Scandies.

Contrast with the UK. When I worked there, two coworkers were having a conversation about something, and I made a similar interjection to the one out of the airplane example above. They seemed annoyed and told me they were having a private conversation, here. This "private" conversation was being shouted over the cube walls across a distance of several cubes, so I thought this the height of absurdity...

Of course, we still have our politics on every level, even if it isn't quite as intense as in Anglo-Saxon cultures. I will try to observe the power dynamics more and see if I can get better at understanding them. I haven't really thought to approach it from the hierarchical angle before, except where an actual formal hierarchy is involved.

VAGraduateStudent's reply might cast more light on the issues I've been having with regard to one-on-one conversations. I think in the cases where I get "hello? Are you still there" on the phone, I might be trying too hard to stay silent and hear the other person out, where a few "uh huh"s and "yeah"s now and then might accomplish that better.

Probably, one-on-ones are still subject to power dynamics in some way. This is going to be very tricky to figure out... I don't feel well equipped to understand politics, especially politics not encoded in formal ways...

If you ask NTs, they'll tell you that you have to wait until others are finished, to make sure you don't interrupt. But I don't think they know, because when everyone is talking in a group, no one waits for everyone else to finish before they utter a comment. Same with one-on-ones.

I'm told I interrupt a lot in one-on-ones, but I do it when the other person is bullshitting, because I don't have the time for their nonsense. So if they complain, I tell them so. If it's my boss, though, I apologize profusely, hehe.

I think in one-on-ones you're supposed to interrupt same as in groups, but there's probably a way of interrupting that doesn't seem to the other like an intrusion but a contribution. And sometimes yes, you have to interrupt them to interject something, especially if they're the kind that talks and talks.

Sue: blah blah blah and then he said-
Me: (interrupting) But was he really drunk?
Sue: Yes! And so blah blah blah and I go-
Me: (interrupting) That's amazing! I always thought that blah blah blah glass of wi-
Sue: (interrupting) I know! I was shocked too!

It used to happen to me all the time, and still happens, but it got better over time, and it depends on the topic. When at college, and it is an academic subject, I try to seize the initiative in a conversation and control the topics, and it works quite well because I am - at least for the moment - astonishingly good at what I am doing. Also, while I suck at multitasking, one of the benefits of having my brain is that when I am in my element, I can usually plan what I am saying by quite alot, and can even take different reactions and responses into consideration while planning, so I can get a good talking spree goind where there is simply little room for interrupting me ( in other words: I am the king of the self-centered monologue).
Other than that, I kinda got the hang of when I interrupted someone, or when I got interrupted. In the first case, I simply appologize and let them continue. In the latter, I politely remind them that I was not finished yet and ask them to let me continue, which, surprisingly, in the most cases works like a charm.

Yes, it does seem to vary a lot by context. Some discussions (serious discussions where the stakes are low or people aren't in real conflict, I guess) are slower-paced in general, and my existing relationship to the people involved will play a role.

I was hoping there had been some kind of study done trying to map out how the turn-taking actually works. Seems there's material for a few good psychology (or sociology, or...) theses there... but it's probably not exactly easy. You'd need to film all the participants as well as probably the whole group from several angles, record the audio (obviously), then map out what happens to each person's body language, where they turn, etc.

I think it's a very interesting challenge, but since NTs don't need this intellectual grasp of the process at all, maybe it wouldn't be worthwhile researching such a complex issue just for the aspies... At least I personally have a feeling that it's an extremely complex process and not at all a question of "just waiting your turn" as NTs are convinced is all there is to know.

I think a good indication of how much power you have in relation to a person or group is how your interruptions are taken - as very welcome, as the normal flow of conversation, as intrusions or anywhere along that continuum. I also think that, if our "interruptions" are taken well, the long silences don't happen. At least for me, I go silent when I'm being ignored.

I didn't know there was so much interest in this, or I would have given a better reply. Deborah Tannen is my first recommendation, but my Advanced Dungeon and Dragons Next Level Ninja Grade Recommendation (if you know what I'm saying) is pretty much everything by Erving Goffman.

You guys are talking about something called symbolic interactionism, which is what I'm studying. Symbolic interactionism is basically a study of how people stand and why, how people speak to each other and why, how people look at each other and why, etc, etc, and what all that means. All of these little things make up something called the symbolic universe, which is social reality. It's not reality like leaves and grass, but it's reality like moms and dads, memory, feeling embarrassed when we have no clothes on, and all other fundamental social things that we take for granted.

Some of this stuff is mentioned in Simon Baron Cohen's books on autism, but he doesn't make the connection. For example, autistic kids sometimes see pictures of surprised people with open mouths and think they're looking at pictures of people who are hungry. Get it? Open mouths? Give me food? That's a symbolic interactionist mistake. It's essentially the same thing as walking up to someone and talking but facing away from them. It's an indication that someone just isn't fully "in" the same social reality as most other people, because they are not following all the rules. Hello autism spectrum. This is my theory, anyway. Read on for why I think this can be useful.

NT sociologists read Goffman and marvel about things that they think "everyone" does socially but no one ever thinks about. People on the spectrum could read Goffman as a social primer. I recommend starting with "The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life." It explains that every person is an actor on a stage, presenting his or her face to an audience. Some of his other books are about why the situation changes what is said and done ("Frame Analysis"), and some give conversation templates with breakdowns of what the conversations mean ("Forms of Talk" I think).

Of course, my own feeling is that the biggest benefit to studying symbolic interactionism is then knowing that you can CHOOSE whether or not to follow the rules. You can know that people are treating you weird because you're speaking in monotone, for example, but you can still choose to speak in your natural voice. No one should feel that they have to pretend to be neurotypical.

And for the original poster- I think the best way to practice is to ask someone you know to tell you what you're doing wrong, if you can find such a person. A close aspie friend of mine used to have the "aspie walk" where he didn't move his arms when he walked. One of his co-workers one day just told him, hey you need to do this with your arms when you walk, and he literally taught him how to walk. Later I told him he had a weird way of standing and he had to force himself to stop standing weird too. Now he walks and stands fine. Your friends may feel like jerks for pointing things out, but if they know you want the information, they'll help you.

I used to struggle with this a lot. Sometimes I can feel my thoughts practically bursting out of me. If something I want to say goes unsaid, the conversation feels like an incomplete puzzle. For me, it's a matter of listening to myself as often as I listen to other people. If I catch myself doing something that might be considered rude, I stop speaking. Calmly and politely I say "I'm sorry, I've interrupted you. Please finish your thought." and I take my turn when it's appropriate. A little easier said than done, unfortunately.

Thanks, VAGraduateStudent. I will definitely have to pick up Goffman's work. It's cool that someone who's studying pretty much what I asked about dropped into the thread; more than I could hope for!

People I know haven't really been able to give me clear answers on what I'm doing wrong. On the other hand, maybe I need to give them time; it wouldn't be fair to expect them to be able to give instant answers on things they understand only intuitively and I don't. At least now they know I want to find out.