Passage Summary: Native speakers think they hear spaces between words, but people who don't know the language just hear one long noise. Because the outsiders don't hear the gaps, the author thinks the gaps aren't actually there.

Conclusion: The way native speakers hear their own language as distinct words is actually a false perception.

Reasoning: People who are unfamiliar with a language hear it as a continuous, unbroken stream of sound rather than as individual words.

Analysis: The author is making a huge leap by assuming that the 'uninterrupted stream' heard by a non-speaker is the objective truth, while the 'separate words' heard by a native speaker is a mental trick. For this to hold up, the argument must assume that the physical sound waves themselves do not contain actual pauses or properties that correspond to word divisions. If there were real physical breaks in the sound that only a trained ear could detect, the native speaker's perception wouldn't be an 'illusion' at all. Look for an answer that addresses the physical reality of the sound versus the listener's perception.