This article discusses three important issues to be considered for the cognitive science of hearers' behaviors. First, I emphasize the distinction between a hearer of an utterance and a recipient of a telling, both of which are referred to as kikite in Japanese. For the former, reactions that occur during the speaker's utterance or that express the understanding of it are the central target of the study, while the latter mainly concerns actions that facilitate the production of larger materials. Second, I connect this distinction to variety in the ways of the progress of conversation. At least, two types of manners can be distinguished: the turn-by-turn type and the telling type. They affect possible actions that hearers/recipients engaged in a conversation can take. Third, I describe different roles that hearers of an utterance play in regard to the speaker's addressing of that utterance. I demonstrate how hearers' nonverbal behaviors can vary depending on their hearer roles. These three concepts should be taken into account to achieve more comprehensive understanding of hearers' behaviors in conversation.
