Human pause detection in spontaneous speech in an online experiment

Authors: Jürgen Trouvain, Raphael Werner

Abstract:

The aim of this exploratory study is to check whether listeners are able to detect the same pauses in spontaneous speech and how fast they are at doing so. The test with German data was performed online with students with basic skills in annotation. The results show that long pauses with breath noises were detected better than hesitation pauses. An important outcome is that pauses were also detected before silences occur or with stimuli without silences.