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Review
. 2025 Dec;32(6):2669-2695.
doi: 10.3758/s13423-025-02749-8. Epub 2025 Aug 7.

Human turn-taking development: A multi-faceted review of turn-taking comprehension and production in the first years of life

Samuel H Cosper  1   2 , Simone Pika  3   4
Affiliations
Review

Human turn-taking development: A multi-faceted review of turn-taking comprehension and production in the first years of life

Samuel H Cosper et al. Psychon Bull Rev. 2025 Dec.

Abstract

Human communication builds on a highly cooperative and interactional infrastructure-conversational turn-taking. Turn-taking is characterized by reciprocal, alternating exchanges between two or more interactants, avoidance of overlap, and relatively short response times. Although the behavioral principles governing turn-taking in spoken interactions of human adults have been investigated for decades, relatively little is known about the acquisition of conversational turn-taking skills and the developmental trajectories of turn-taking comprehension and production. The aim of the present review was to provide a comprehensive overview of turn-taking development enabling the extrapolation of developmental milestones and investigations across species and taxa. it thus aims to serve as a crucial guide to our current understanding of turn-taking in childhood and instigate a better understanding of turn-taking phylogeny, its evolutionary roots, as well as systematic, quantitative applications across and between species, thereby possibly bridging the existing gap between linguistic and nonlinguistic species.

Keywords: Conversational turn-taking; Developmental milestones; Phylogenetic perspective; Social interactions.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflicts of interest/Competing interests: The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. Ethics approval: No approval of research ethics committees was required to accomplish the goals of this study because no data were collected for this review paper. Consent to participate: Not applicable as no humans were tested in this review paper. Consent for publication: Not applicable as no humans were tested in this review paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
This figure provides a timeline, in months, and specifies the milestones of comprehensive turn-taking. Validation of a milestone by means of corroboration in the literature is marked by a (*)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
This figure provides a timeline, in months, and specifies the milestones of productive turn-taking. Validation of a milestone by means of corroboration in the literature is marked by a (*)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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