English

From Turn-Taking to Synchronous Dialogue: A Survey of Full-Duplex Spoken Language Models

Computation and Language 2025-09-19 v1 Sound Audio and Speech Processing

Abstract

True Full-Duplex (TFD) voice communication--enabling simultaneous listening and speaking with natural turn-taking, overlapping speech, and interruptions--represents a critical milestone toward human-like AI interaction. This survey comprehensively reviews Full-Duplex Spoken Language Models (FD-SLMs) in the LLM era. We establish a taxonomy distinguishing Engineered Synchronization (modular architectures) from Learned Synchronization (end-to-end architectures), and unify fragmented evaluation approaches into a framework encompassing Temporal Dynamics, Behavioral Arbitration, Semantic Coherence, and Acoustic Performance. Through comparative analysis of mainstream FD-SLMs, we identify fundamental challenges: synchronous data scarcity, architectural divergence, and evaluation gaps, providing a roadmap for advancing human-AI communication.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.14515,
  title  = {From Turn-Taking to Synchronous Dialogue: A Survey of Full-Duplex Spoken Language Models},
  author = {Yuxuan Chen and Haoyuan Yu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.14515},
  year   = {2025}
}