The sound of silence? Researchers prove we can hear it

The fact that these silence-based illusions produced exactly the same results as their sound-based counterparts suggests that people hear silence just as they hear sounds, the researchers said. If you can get the same illusions with silences as you get with sounds, then that may be evidence that we literally hear silence after all." They found the same results: People thought one long moment of silence was longer than two short moments of silence. Other silence illusions yielded the same outcomes as sound illusions. The researchers plan to keep exploring the extent to which people hear silence, including whether we hear silences that are not preceded by sound.