Abstract: The method recognizes a signal pause between two patterns that are present in a time-variant measurement signal and that are recognized using hidden Markov models. In a first signal processing stage, feature vectors are formed periodically for pattern recognition, which describe a signal curve of a measurement signal within a time slice. No speech pause is detected by a pause detector contained therein in a first time slice based on present features of a first feature vector. In a second signal processing stage, in a second time slice that follows the first time slice the first feature vector is compared with at least two hidden Markov models, of which at least one has been trained to a pattern to be recognized and another has been trained to a pattern characteristic for a pause.