Filled pauses serve a…um…communicative function: a comparison between self- directed and social speech

Some authors argue that filled pauses serve a communicative function in speech. The currentstudy aims to test this function by analyzing the difference in filler-use in a self-directed and socialspeech condition. Additionally, the influence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) traits and stresson the difference in filler-use between the two conditions were examined. In the first condition,participants had to describe a series of different tangrams to themselves. In the second condition,participants had to describe tangrams to another participant. Results indicate that more filled pauseswere used when talking to someone else, which suggests that these disfluencies serve a purposebeyond being mere stopgaps or indications of planning difficulties. However, no significantcorrelation was found between the score on the ASD questionnaire or stress and the difference infillers used in both speech conditions.