Perception in Communication

In living our lives and communicating with each other our perception of
reality is less important than reality itself. Some would argue that there IS no
ultimate reality, only the illusion of our perceptions.

Our perceptions are influenced by:

1. physical elements -- what information your eye or ear can actually

take in, how your brain processes it.
2. environmental elements -- what information is out there to receive, its
context.
3. learned elements -- culture, personality, habit: what filters we use to
select what we take in and how we react to it.

(from Marshall Singer's work)

For example, color blind people will not perceive "red" the way as other
people do. Those with normal vision may physically see "red" similarly, but
will interpret it culturally:

• red meaning "stop" or "anger" or "excitement" or "in debt" (US)

• red meaning "good fortune" (China)
• red meaning your school's colors

Selective Attention

The world deluges us with sensory information every second. Our mind
produces interpretations and models and perceptions a mile a minute. To
survive, we have to select what information we attend to and what we
remember.

Information that attracts our attention

• Sends out strong physical stimulus: contrast, blinking, loudness, etc.
• Elicits emotion -- TV dramas, memory aid: when taking notes on an
article, write your emotional response to it
• Is unexpected? (This may draw your attention or conversely, you may
miss it entirely with your mind filling in the missing pieces you expected
to receive.)
• Fits a pattern
• Previous knowledge that gives it context
• Interests you
• Connects to basic needs (belonging, sex, danger, hunger...)
• Is useful.

Note how important your cultural filters will be in determining the answers
to these questions--what hooks your emotions? What is "normal" and what is
"unexpected", et

Suppose someone tells you to go to a specified place and pick up a heavy

object and use it to rearrange the relative positions of other heavy objects.
Furthermore, you have to do this better than other people who are trying to
do this better than other people who are trying to do the same thing. Finally,
you have to pay money to compete against the other people in this activity.
What is your perception of this assignment? What kind of job do you
perceive this to be? Would your perception of this "work" change if it were
called bowling?

What you just experienced in the paragraph above was a change in

perception. Your self-talk at first probably involved images of lifting,
moving, prying, and shoving; at the end, however, you quickly dropped all
of those "work" images and replaced them with the familiar "play" images of
bowling. Your self-talk (the world inside your head) was influenced by the
paragraph (the world outside your head). All of us live in at least two
different worlds: the world inside ourselves and the world outside ourselves.
Many factors influence our perception, but perhaps most influential is our
self-talk, our intra-personal communication with …

Communication is a process where by information is enclosed in a

package and is channeled and imparted by a sender to a receiver
 via some medium. The receiver then decodes the message and gives
the sender a feedback. All forms of communication require a
sender, a message, and an intended recipient, however the receiver
need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate
at the time of communication in order for the act of communication
to occur. Communication requires that all parties have an area of
communicative commonality. There are verbal means using
language and there are nonverbal means, such as body language,
sign language, paralanguage, haptic communication, chronemics,
and eye contact, through media, i.e., pictures, graphics and sound,
and writInformation communication revolutions

Over time, technology has progressed and has created new forms of and
ideas about communication. The newer advances include media and
communications psychology. Media psychology is an emerging field of
study. These technological advances revolutionized the processes of
communication. Researchers have divided how communication was
transformed into three revolutionary stages:

In the 1st Information Communication Revolution, the first written

communication began, with pictographs. These writings were made on
stone, which were too heavy to transfer. During this era, written
communication was not mobile, but nonetheless existed.

In the 2nd Information Communication Revolution, writing began to appear

on paper, papyrus, clay, wax, etc. Common alphabets were introduced,
allowing the uniformity of language across large distances. Much later the
Gutenberg printing-press was invented. Gutenberg created this printing-
press after a long period of time in the 15th century.

In the 3rd Information Communication Revolution, information can now be

transferred via controlled waves and electronic signals.

Communication is thus a process by which meaning is assigned and

conveyed in an attempt to create shared understanding. This process requires
a vast repertoire of skills in interpersonal processing, listening, observing,
speaking, questioning, analyzing, gestures and evaluating. It is through
communication that collaboration and cooperation occur.[1]

There are also many common barriers to successful communication,

two of which are message overload (when a person receives too
 many messages at the same time), and message complexity.[2]
Communication is a continuous process. The psychology of media
comHuman communication

Human spoken and written languages can be described as a system of

symbols (sometimes known as lexemes) and the grammars (rules) by which
the symbols are manipulated. The word "language" is also used to refer to
common properties of languages. Language learning is normal in human
childhood. Most human languages use patterns of sound or gesture for
symbols which enable communication with others around them. There are
thousands of human languages, and these seem to share certain properties,
even though many shared properties have exceptions.

There is no defined line between a language and a dialect, but the linguist
Max Weinreich is credited as saying that "a language is a dialect with an
army and a navy". Constructed languages such as Esperanto, programming
languages, and various mathematical formalisms are not necessarily
restricted to the properties shared by human languages.

Bernard Luskin, UCLA, 1970, advanced computer assisted instruction and

began to connect media and psychology into what is now the field of media
psychology. In 1998, the American Association of Psychology, Media
Psychology Division 46 Task Force report on psychology and new
technologies combined media and communication as pictures, graphics and
sound increasingly dominate modern communication.

Nonverbal communication

Nonverbal communication is the process of communicating through sending

and receiving wordless messages.Non-verbal communication is a non-word
human process(such as gestures,facial expression) and the perceived
characteristics of the environment through which human verbal and non-
verbal messages are transmitted.It is called as silent language. Such
messages can be communicated through gesture, body language or posture;
facial expression and eye contact, object communication such as clothing,
hairstyles or even architecture, or symbols and infographics, as well as
through an aggregate of the above, such as behavioral communication.
Nonverbal communication plays a key role in every person's day to day life,
from employment to romantic engagements.
Speech may also contain nonverbal elements known as paralanguage,
including voice quality, emotion and speaking style, as well as prosodic
features such as rhythm, intonation and stress. Likewise, written texts have
nonverbal elements such as handwriting style, spatial arrangement of words,
or the use of emoticons. A portmanteau of the English words emotion (or
emote) and icon, an emoticon is a symbol or combination of symbols, such
as :), used to convey emotional content in written or message form.And
verbal communication be seen as being rude and illerturate.

Other communication channels such as telegraphy fit into this category,

whereby signals travel from person to person by an alternative means. These
signals can in themselves be representative of words, objects or merely be
state projections. Trials have shown that humans can communicate directly
in this way[3] without body language, voice tonality or words.

munications is an emerging area of increasing attention and study.

Categories and Features

G. W. Porter divides non-verbal communication into four broad categories:

• Physical. This is the personal type of communication. It includes

facial expressions, tone of voice, sense of touch, sense of smell, and
body motions.

• Aesthetic. This is the type of communication that takes place through

creative expressions: playing instrumental music, dancing, painting
and sculpturing.

• Signs. This is the mechanical type of communication, which includes

the use of signal flags, the 21-gun salute, horns, and sirens.

• Symbolic. This is the type of communication that makes use of

religious, status, or ego-building symbols.

Static Features
 • Distance. The distance one stands from another frequently conveys a
non-verbal message. In some cultures it is a sign of attraction, while in
others it may reflect status or the intensity of the exchange.

• Orientation. People may present themselves in various ways: face-to-

face, side-to-side, or even back-to-back. For example, cooperating
people are likely to sit side-by-side while competitors frequently face
one another.

• Posture. Obviously one can be lying down, seated, or standing. These

are not the elements of posture that convey messages. Are we
slouched or erect ? Are our legs crossed or our arms folded ? Such
postures convey a degree of formality and the degree of relaxation in
the communication exchange.

• Physical Contact. Shaking hands, touching, holding, embracing,

pushing, or patting on the back all convey messages. They reflect an
element of intimacy or a feeling of (or lack of) attraction.

Dynamic Features

• Facial Expressions. A smile, frown, raised eyebrow, yawn, and sneer

all convey information. Facial expressions continually change during
interaction and are monitored constantly by the recipient. There is
evidence that the meaning of these expressions may be similar across
cultures.

• Gestures. One of the most frequently observed, but least understood,

cues is a hand movement. Most people use hand movements regularly
when talking. While some gestures (e.g., a clenched fist) have
universal meanings, most of the others are individually learned and
idiosyncratic.

• Looking. A major feature of social communication is eye contact. It

can convey emotion, signal when to talk or finish, or aversion. The
frequency of contact may suggest either interest or boredom.

It is essential that the basic elements of communication be identified. These

elements are:
• Sender/encoder/speaker

• Receiver/decoder/listener

• Message

• Medium

• Feedback/reply

1.Sender/encoder/Speaker:

The person who initiates the communication process is normally referred to

as the sender. From his personal data bank he selects ideas, encodes and
finally transmits them to the receiver.

2.Receiver/decoder/listener:

The listener receives an encoded message which he attempts to decode. This

process is carried on in relation to the work environment and the value
perceived in terms of the work situation.

3.Message:

Message is the encoded idea transmitted by the sender. The formulation of

the message is very important for an incorrect patterning can turn the
receiver hostile or make him lose interest.

4.Medium:

Another important element of communication is the medium or channel. It

could be oral, written, or non-verbal, prior to the composition of the
message, the medium/ channel should be decided.

5.Feedback:

This is the most important component of communication. Effective

communication takes place only when there is feedback. The errors and
faults that abound in business situations are a result of lack of feedback.
Basic Model of Communication:
Purpose of effective communication:

• Saves time of communication

• Helps in coordinating, controlling and issuing instructions

• Brings improvement in speaking abilities, listening, interacting, writing,

convincing and persuading.

7C’s & 4S’s in Effective communication:

In any business environment, adherence to the 7C’s & 4S’s helps the sender
in transmitting his message with ease and accuracy.

C’s Relevance

1.Credibility Builds trust

2.Courtesy Improves relationship

3.Clarity Makes comprehension easier

4.Correctness Builds confidence

5.Consistency Introduces stability

6.Concreteness Reinforces confidence

7.Conciseness Saves time

4S’s

S’s Relevance

1.Shortness------ Economizes
2.Simplicity----- Impresses

3.Strength------- convinces

4Sincerity------ appears

BARRIERS

• Sender-oriented

• Receiver-oriented

Sender oriented barriers:

It can be either voluntary or involuntary. At any cost, efforts should be made

on the part of the sender to identify and remove them. Some of the barriers
that are sender oriented are:

¬ Badly expressed message: concrete ideas and well structures message

¬ Loss in transmission: correct choice of medium or channel

¬ Semantic problem: simple words and accurate understanding of intension

¬ Over/under communication: quantum of information should be right

¬ ‘I’ Attitude: avoid I attitude

¬ Prejudices: mind free of bias

Rules to overcome the sender oriented barriers:

¬ Plan and clarify ideas

¬ Create a climate of trust and confidence

¬ Time your mind carefully

¬ Reinforce words with action

¬ Communicate efficiently

Receiver-oriented barriers:

¬ Poor retention: jot down points

¬ Inattentive listening: improve concentration

¬ Tendency to evaluate: delay evaluation

¬ Interest and attitudes: develop interest

¬ Conflicting information: confirm with feedback, clarify

¬ Differing status and position: encourage juniors to come up with ideas and
listen

¬ Resistance to change: be flexible

¬ Refutations and arguments: enter into healthy discussions

Visual communication

Visual communication is communication through visual aid. It is the

conveyance of ideas and information in forms that can be read or looked
upon. Primarily associated with two dimensional images, it includes: signs,
typography, drawing, graphic design, illustration, colour and electronic
resources. It solely relies on vision. It is form of communication with visual
effect. It explores the idea that a visual message with text has a greater
power to inform, educate or persuade a person. It is communication by
presenting information through visual form.

The evaluation of a good visual design is based on measuring

comprehension by the audience, not on aesthetic or artistic preference. There
are no universally agreed-upon principles of beauty and ugliness. There
exists a variety of ways to present information visually, like gestures, body
languages, video and TV. Here, focus is on the presentation of text, pictures,
diagrams, photos, et cetera, integrated on a computer display. The term
visual presentation is used to refer to the actual presentation of information.
Recent research in the field has focused on web design and graphically
oriented usability. Graphic designers use methods of visual communication
in their professional practice.

Understanding the Field of Communication

The field of communication is typically broken into three distinct camps:

human communication, mass communications, and communication
disorders [4]

Human Communication or Communication Studies is the study of how

individuals communicate. Some examples of the distinct areas that human
communication scholars study are:

• Interpersonal Communication
• Organizational Communication
• Oral Communication
• Small Group Communication
• Intercultural Communication
• Nonviolent Communication
• Conflict
• Rhetoric
• Public Speaking
• Media and Communications Psychology

Examples of Mass Communications include:

• Mass communication
• Graphic communication
• Science communication
• Strategic Communication
• Superluminal communication
• Technical communication
• Public relations
• Broadcast Media
• Journalism
• Media and Communications Psychology

Examples of Communication Disorders include:

 • Facilitated Communication
• Impairment of Language Modality
• Speech Disorders

Oral communication

Oral communication is a process whereby information is transferred from a

sender to receiver; in general communication is usually transferred by both
verbal means and visual aid throughout the process.. The receiver could be
an individual person, a group of persons or even an audience. There are a
few of oral communication types: discussion, speeches, presentations, etc.
However, often when you communicate face to face the body language and
your voice tonality has a bigger impact than the actual words that you are
saying.

A widely cited and widely mis-interpreted figure, used to emphasize the

importance of delivery, is that "communication is 55% body language, 38%
tone of voice, 7% content of words", the so-called "7%-38%-55% rule".[5]
This is not however what the cited research shows – rather, when conveying
emotion, if body language, tone of voice, and words disagree, then body
language and tone of voice will be believed more than words.[6][clarification needed]
For example, a person saying "I'm delighted to meet you" while mumbling,
hunched over, and looking away will be interpreted as insincere. (Further
discussion at Albert Mehrabian: Three elements of communication.)

You can notice that the content or the word that you are using is not the
determining part of a good communication. The "how you say it" has a
major impact on the receiver. You have to capture the attention of the
audience and connect with them. For example, two persons saying the same
joke, one of them could make the audience die laughing related to his good
body language and tone of voice. However, the second person that has the
exact same words could make the audience stare at one another.[citation needed]

In an oral communication, it is possible to have visual aid helping you to

provide more precise information. Often enough, we use a presentation
program in presentations related to our speech to facilitate or enhance the
communication process.

Types of Communications - Woven Written Oral Visual Electronic Non-

verbal
The first major model for communication came in 1949 by Claude Shannon
and Warren Weaver for Bell Laboratories [7] The original model was
designed to mirror the functioning of radio and telephone technologies.
Their initial model consisted of three primary parts: sender, channel, and
receiver. The sender was the part of a telephone a person spoke into, the
channel was the telephone itself, and the receiver was the part of the phone
where one could hear the other person. Shannon and Weaver also recognized
that often there is static that interferes with one listening to a telephone
conversation, which they deemed noise.

In a simple model, often referred to as the transmission model or standard

view of communication, information or content (e.g. a message in natural
language) is sent in some form (as spoken language) from an emisor/ sender/
encoder to a destination/ receiver/ decoder. This common conception of
communication simply views communication as a means of sending and
receiving information. The strengths of this model are simplicity, generality,
and quantifiability. Social scientists Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver
structured this model based on the following elements:

1. An information source, which produces a message.

2. A transmitter, which encodes the message into signals
3. A channel, to which signals are adapted for transmission
4. A receiver, which 'decodes' (reconstructs) the message from the
signal.
5. A destination, where the message arrives.

Shannon and Weaver argued that there were three levels of problems for
communication within this theory.

The technical problem: how accurately can the message be

transmitted?
The semantic problem: how precisely is the meaning 'conveyed'?
 The effectiveness problem: how effectively does the received meaning
affect behavior?

Daniel Chandler critiques the transmission model by stating

It assumes communicators are isolated individuals.

No allowance for differing purposes.
No allowance for differing interpretations.
No allowance for unequal power relations.
No allowance for situational contexts.

In 1960, David Berlo expanded on Shannon and Weaver’s (1949) linear

model of communication and created the SMCR Model of Communication.
[8]
The Sender-Message-Channel-Receiver Model of communication
separated the model into clear parts and has been expanded upon by other
scholars.

Communication is usually described along a few major dimensions:

Message (what type of things are communicated), source / emisor / sender /
encoder (by whom), form (in which form), channel (through which
medium), destination / receiver / target / decoder (to whom), and Receiver.
Wilbur Schram (1954) also indicated that we should also examine the
impact that a message has (both desired and undesired) on the target of the
message.[9] Between parties, communication includes acts that confer
knowledge and experiences, give advice and commands, and ask questions.
These acts may take many forms, in one of the various manners of
communication. The form depends on the abilities of the group
communicating. Together, communication content and form make messages
that are sent towards a destination. The target can be oneself, another person
or being, another entity (such as a corporation or group of beings).

Communication can be seen as processes of information transmission

governed by three levels of semiotic rules:

1. Syntactic (formal properties of signs and symbols),

2. Pragmatic (concerned with the relations between signs/expressions
and their users) and
3. Semantic (study of relationships between signs and symbols and what
they represent).
Therefore, communication is social interaction where at least two interacting
agents share a common set of signs and a common set of semiotic rules. This
commonly held rules in some sense ignores autocommunication, including
intrapersonal communication via diaries or self-talk, both secondary
phenomena that followed the primary acquisition of communicative
competences within social interactions.

In light of these weaknesses, Barnlund (2008) proposed a transactional

model of communication.[10] The basic premise of the transactional model of
communication is that individuals are simultaneously engaging in the
sending and receiving of messages.

In a slightly more complex form a sender and a receiver are linked

reciprocally. This second attitude of communication, referred to as the
constitutive model or constructionist view, focuses on how an individual
communicates as the determining factor of the way the message will be
interpreted. Communication is viewed as a conduit; a passage in which
information travels from one individual to another and this information
becomes separate from the communication itself. A particular instance of
communication is called a speech act. The sender's personal filters and the
receiver's personal filters may vary depending upon different regional
traditions, cultures, or gender; which may alter the intended meaning of
message contents. In the presence of "communication noise" on the
transmission channel (air, in this case), reception and decoding of content
may be faulty, and thus the speech act may not achieve the desired effect.
One problem with this encode-transmit-receive-decode model is that the
processes of encoding and decoding imply that the sender and receiver each
possess something that functions as a code book, and that these two code
books are, at the very least, similar if not identical. Although something like
code books is implied by the model, they are nowhere represented in the
model, which creates many conceptual difficulties.

Theories of coregulation describe communication as a creative and dynamic

continuous process, rather than a discrete exchange of information. Canadian
media scholar Harold Innis had the theory that people use different types of
media to communicate and which one they choose to use will offer different
possibilities for the shape and durability of society (Wark, McKenzie 1997).
His famous example of this is using ancient Egypt and looking at the ways
they built themselves out of media with very different properties stone and
papyrus. Papyrus is what he called 'Space Binding'. it made possible the
transmission of written orders across space, empires and enables the waging
of distant military campaigns and colonial administration. The other is stone
and 'Time Binding', through the construction of temples and the pyramids
can sustain their authority generation to generation, through this media they
can change and shape communication in their society (Wark, McKenzie
1997).

Communication noise

In any communication model, noise is interference with the decoding of

messages sent over a channel by an encoder. There are many examples of
noise:

Environmental Noise: Noise that physically disrupts communication, such

as standing next to loud speakers at a party, or the noise from a construction
site next to a classroom making it difficult to hear the professor.

Physiological-Impairment Noise: Physical maladies that prevent effective

communication, such as actual deafness or blindness preventing messages
from being received as they were intended.

Semantic Noise: Different interpretations of the meanings of certain words.

For example, the word "weed" can be interpreted as an undesirable plant in
your yard, or as a euphemism for marijuana.

Syntactical Noise: Mistakes in grammar can disrupt communication, such

as abrupt changes in verb tense during a sentence.

Organizational Noise: Poorly structured communication can prevent the

receiver from accurate interpretation. For example, unclear and badly stated
directions can make the receiver even more lost.

Cultural Noise: Stereotypical assumptions can cause misunderstandings,

such as unintentionally offending Jews by wishing them a "Merry
Christmas."

Psychological Noise: Certain attitudes can also make communication

difficult. For instance, great anger or sadness may cause someone to lose
focus on the present moment. Disorders such as Autism may also severely
hamper effective communication.[11]
Nonhuman communication

See also: Biocommunication (science) and Interspecies communication

Communication in many of its facets is not limited to humans, or even to

primates. Every information exchange between living organisms — i.e.
transmission of signals involving a living sender and receiver — can be
considered a form of communication. Thus, there is the broad field of animal
communication, which encompasses most of the issues in ethology. Also
very primitive animals such as corals are competent to communicate. On a
more basic level, there is cell signaling, cellular communication, and
chemical communication between primitive organisms like bacteria, and
within the plant and fungal kingdoms. All of these communication processes
are sign-mediated interactions with a great variety of distinct coordinations.

Animal communication is any behavior on the part of one animal that has an
effect on the current or future behavior of another animal. Of course, human
communication can be subsumed as a highly developed form of animal
communication. The study of animal communication, called zoosemiotics'
(distinguishable from anthroposemiotics, the study of human
communication) has played an important part in the development of
ethology, sociobiology, and the study of animal cognition. This is quite
evident as humans are able to communicate with animals, especially
dolphins and other animals used in circuses. However, these animals have to
learn a special means of communication. Animal communication, and
indeed the understanding of the animal world in general, is a rapidly
growing field, and even in the 21st century so far, many prior
understandings related to diverse fields such as personal symbolic name use,
animal emotions, animal culture and learning, and even sexual conduct, long
thought to be well understood, have been revolutionized. Plants and fungi

Among plants, communication is observed within the plant organism, i.e.

within plant cells and between plant cells, between plants of the same or
related species, and between plants and non-plant organisms, especially in
the root zone. Plant roots communicate in parallel with rhizome bacteria,
with fungi and with insects in the soil. This parallel sign-mediated
interactions which are governed by syntactic, pragmatic and semantic rules
are possible because of the decentralized "nervous system" of plants. The
original meaning of the word "neuron" in Greek is "vegetable fiber" and as
recent research shows, most of the intraorganismic plant communication
processes are neuronal-like.[12] Plants also communicate via volatiles in the
case of herbivory attack behavior to warn neighboring plants. In parallel
they produce other volatiles which attract parasites which attack these
herbivores. In Stress situations plants can overwrite the genetic code they
inherited from their parents and revert to that of their grand- or great-
grandparents.

Fungi communicate to coordinate and organize their own growth and

development such as the formation of mycelia and fruiting bodies.
Additionally fungi communicate with same and related species as well as
with nonfungal organisms in a great variety of symbiotic interactions,
especially with bacteria, unicellular eukaryotes, plants and insects. The used
semiochemicals are of biotic origin and they trigger the fungal organism to
react in a specific manner, in difference while to even the same chemical
molecules are not being a part of biotic messages doesn’t trigger to react the
fungal organism. It means, fungal organisms are competent to identify the
difference of the same molecules being part of biotic messages or lack of
these features. So far five different primary signalling molecules are known
that serve to coordinate very different behavioral patterns such as
filamentation, mating, growth, pathogenicity. Behavioral coordination and
the production of such substances can only be achieved through
interpretation processes: self or non-self, abiotic indicator, biotic message
from similar, related, or non-related species, or even "noise", i.e., similar
molecules without biotic content-. Communication as academic discipline

Main article: Communication theory

Communication as an academic discipline, sometimes called

"communicology,"[13] relates to all the ways we communicate, so it embraces
a large body of study and knowledge. The communication discipline
includes both verbal and nonverbal messages. A body of scholarship all
about communication is presented and explained in textbooks, electronic
publications, and academic journals. In the journals, researchers report the
results of studies that are the basis for an ever-expanding understanding of
how we all communicate.

Communication happens at many levels (even for one single action), in

many different ways, and for most beings, as well as certain machines.
Several, if not all, fields of study dedicate a portion of attention to
communication, so when speaking about communication it is very important
to be sure about what aspects of communication one is speaking about.
Definitions of communication range widely, some recognizing that animals
can communicate with each other as well as human beings, and some are
more narrow, only including human beings within the different parameters
of human symbolic interaction.