ABSTRACT
Speech is a ability to convey thoughts or ideas by the generation of intelligible acoustic patterns, is not unique to humans if one considers the mating, alarm, flocking, sounds made by various animal species. On the basis of its outcome, simultaneous speech may be divided into two types, interruptive and noninterruptive. Simultaneous speech is speech uttered by a participant who does not have the floor during a vocalization by the participant who does have the floor. Reflection will reveal that no other single human endeavour besides speech places such a demanding load on the available brain resources. This load can in turn affect cardiac function. The role of speech pause monitoring in the diagnosis and treatment of mood disorders can be tested in psychiatric practice by using remote data collection to detect previously undiagnosed switches into mania at night. A schizophrenic patient with drug related side effects was monitored by speech pause technology.
