Does silence simply separate speech components?

Abstract

A study was conducted to test one possible acoustic explanation of one role played by silent intervals in the perception of stop consonants. We hypothesized that silence creates a separation between the different components of a speech stimulus, thus reducing the magnitude of the auditory interaction between the stimulus components. In order to test this auditory separation hypothesis, we attempted to trade silence against an auditory separation based upon the selective lateralization of the stimulus components created by an interaural phase shift. In finding no such trading relation, we failed to support the auditory separation hypothesis.