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"Did you
hear what I said?" demanded a father who had been
lecturing his teenage son on the importance of hanging up clothes.
In fact, the boy did hear him, but he may not have been
listening. Listening is a complex process we use to make sense out of what we hear. Hearing is the physiological process of decoding sounds. You hear when the sound vibrations reach your eardrum and buzz the middle ear bones: the hammer, anvil, and stirrup. Eventually, the sound vibrations are translated into electrical impulses that reach the brain. |
To listen to something, you must first select that sound from competing sounds. To truly listen involves four activities - selecting, attending, understanding, and remembering. We confirm that listening occurs by responding.
Selecting
| To select a sound is to focus on one sound as you sort through the various sounds competing for your attention. As you listen to another in an interpersonal context, you focus on the words and non-verbal messages of your partner. Even now, as you are reading this lesson, there are undoubtedly countless noises within earshot. To listen, you must select which of these sounds will receive your attention. |
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Attending
After selecting a sound, you then focus on it. Attention can be fleeting. You may attend to the sound for a moment and then move on or return to other thoughts or other sounds. Typically, you attend to those sounds and messages that meet your needs or are consistent with what you think you should be focusing on. If you are hungry, you may select and then attend to a commercial for a sizzling burger or a crispy-crust pizza. Information that is novel, humorous, intense, or that somehow relates to you, also may capture your attention.
In general, conflict, humour, new ideas, and real or concrete things command your attention more easily than abstract theories that do not relate to your interests or needs. In addition, when someone invites you to participate or respond, you listen much more attentively than you do when someone just talks to you.
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Understanding Whereas hearing is a physiological phenomenon, understanding is the process of assigning meaning to the sounds you select and to which you attend. There are several theories about how you assign meaning to words you hear, but there is no universally accepted notion of how this process works. We know that people understand best if they can relate what they are hearing to something they already know. |
A second basic principle about how people understand others is that the greater the similarity between individuals, the greater the likelihood for more accurate understanding. Individuals from different cultures who have substantially different religions, family lifestyles, values, and attitudes often have difficulty understanding each other, particularly in the early phases of a relationship. A key to establishing relationships with others is trying to understand those differences in experience to arrive at a common meaning for the message we exchange.
Remembering
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To remember is to
recall information. Some researchers theorize that
you store every detail you have ever heard or witnessed; your mind
operates like a video camera. But you cannot retrieve or remember
all of the tapes. Our brains have both short-term and long-term memory storage systems. Short-term memory is where you store almost all the information you hear. You look up a phone number in the telephone book, mumble the number to yourself, and then dial the number only to discover that the line is busy. Three minutes later you have to look up the number again because it did not get stored in your long-term memory. |
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Our short-term storage area is very limited. We forget hundreds of snips and bits of insignificant information that pass through our brains each day. The information we store in long-term memory includes events, conversations, and other data that are significant for us. We tend to remember dramatic and vital information, as well as seemingly inconsequential details connected with such information. Information makes it to long-term memory because of its significance to us.
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Responding Interpersonal communication is interactive; it involves both talking and responding. You respond to people to let them know you understand their messages. Responses can be non-verbal; direct eye contact and head nods let your partner know you're tuned in. Or you can respond verbally by asking questions to confirm the content of the message or by making statements that reflect the feelings of the speaker. |
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Credits:
1.Charles
Pix
2. Bearfont
3.Cam
B
4. Jooliree
5. Mtsofan
