Abstract
This study examines the relation between the interpersonal rhythm of conversation established between a college student and a person with severe intellectual disabilities (CA21) and the college student's subjective evaluation of the conversation. Presented here is analysis of three of thirteen conversations between the two which examines the relation of 1) an acoustic analysis of the non-linguistic use of the voice (the time series pattern), 2) an analysis of transcriptions of the conversations, and 3) an analysis of student's evaluation. The student's subjective evaluation indicated that the conversation became smoother and empathy increased as time passed. This subjective evaluation corresponded to a detailed analysis of the speed of the conversation and the length of pauses before speakers replied to each other. This analysis showed that an adjustment in the rhythm of conversation between the speakers occurred in about ten minutes. Moreover, this adjustment occurred even in cases where there was no mastery of linguistic contents and forms and no increasing rise in the frequency of establishing an interpersonal rhythm.
