Ascribing emotions depending on pause length in native and foreign language speech

•We investigated the role of speech pauses in emotion ascribing.•Length of silent speech pauses was systematically manipulated.•Experiments were made in a native and in a foreign language context.•Speech samples are perceived to be sadder and more scared, when pauses are longer.•Speech samples are perceived to be happier and more positive when pauses are shorter. Although the relationship between emotions and speech is well documented, little is known about the role of speech pauses in emotion expression and emotion recognition. The present study investigated how speech pause length influences how listeners ascribe emotional states to the speaker. Emotionally neutral Hungarian speech samples were taken, and speech pauses were systematically manipulated to create five variants of all passages. Hungarian and Austrian participants rated the emotionality of these passages by indicating on a 1–6 point scale how angry, sad, disgusted, happy, surprised, scared, positive, and heated the speaker could have been. The data reveal that the length of silent pauses influences listeners in attributing emotional states to the speaker. Our findings argue that pauses play a relevant role in ascribing emotions and that this phenomenon might be partly independent of language.