Abstract

In comparison to normal hearing interlocutors, individuals with hearing loss often show delayed and more variable timing of spoken turns in conversation. Limited access to prosodic turn-end cues could contribute to such behaviour. This exploratory study investigates the impact of manipulated utterance-final f0 contours (with an increased or reduced excursion size) on turn-end prediction for individuals with self-reported hearing loss. Using an online button-press task, we assessed speed and accuracy of predicting a spoken turn end, alongside subjective measures of listening effort and confidence. Results indicate that a decreased f0 excursion, creating a gradual fall, improves both the speed and accuracy of turn-end prediction. On the other hand, acoustic enhancement of the peak associated with the utterance-final stressed syllable impairs turn-end prediction. These findings highlight that early prosodic cues aligned with linguistic structure facilitate turn-end prediction for individuals with hearing loss.