Silence in multimodal communication and its effect on answers to a request: an experimental study

This study addresses how silence can modify the interpretation given to an answer from an experimental perspective. More specifically, it addresses how the answer to a speech act of request could be interpreted when silence influences its propositional content. It was found that, in negative answers, silence works as an intensifier of rejection, whereas silence in positive answers diminishes the perception of acceptance. This brings evidence on how the process of understanding the message communicated by the speakeris also multimodal in nature, since the interlocutors extract information from various modalities, even when these are presented under instances of absence of speech.