Scientists from Johns Hopkins University (USA) proved that the human brain literally hears silence. The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The authors of the study conducted seven experiments with the participation of thousands of volunteers. The location of a train, crowded restaurant, market, playground, etc. They were allowed to listen to single or repeated pauses against the background of noise. That is, the researchers reversed the well-known “more than one” illusion, which causes the listener to think that two separate voices are shorter than one when in fact their total duration is the same.

As it turns out, repeated pauses are similarly perceived by the brain as shorter than a pause. In other words, it processes silence in the same way as sounds. This is why people may feel unpleasant feelings during pauses in speech, the authors note.

“Illusions and effects thought to be typical of sound processing are also achieved in silence, suggesting that people actually hear the absence of sound,” said Ian Phillips, a philosopher and psychologist at Johns Hopkins University.

Now the team wants to see how the brain perceives silence when it is completely disconnected from sound, rather than being immersed in it as in these experiments.