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Background: Turn taking appears to be an almost universal phenomenon in communicative behavior and requires tight coordination between interlocutors. However, there is no current consensus on how and when infants develop the ability to take turns in vocal interactions and which mechanisms are involved.

Bayesian accounts of development posit that infants form predictions about the causes of sensory signals in their environment and select actions that resolve the largest amount of uncertainty. This paper considers how this approach to infant development can inform and unify insights from experimental research on early cognitive development and language acquisition.