The study adds to our increasing knowledge about how we have a sense of our hearing functions. Quote the kind of illusions and effects that look like they are unique to the auditory processing of a sound. We also get them with silences, suggesting we really do hear the absence of sound too. End quote. That according to Ian Phillips, a philosopher and psychologist at Johns Hopkins University. Many studies now show that silence can be important in perceiving sounds, like the way we leave pauses between words