The Receiving Stage
The first stage of the listening process is the receiving stage, which involves hearing and attending.
Learning Objectives
Define the receiving stage of the listening process
Key Takeaways
Key Points
- Hearing is the physiological process of registering sound waves as they hit the eardrum.
- Attending is the process of accurately identifying particular sounds we hear as words.
- Attending also involves being able to discern breaks between words, or speech segmentation.
Key Terms
- Hearing: The physiological process of registering sound waves as they hit the eardrum.
- Attending: The process of accurately identifying particular sounds as words.
- Receiving stage: The first stage of the listening process, which involves hearing and attending.
The Receiving Stage
The first stage of the listening process is the receiving stage, which involves hearing and attending.
Use Your Ears!: The first stage of the listening process is receiving.
Hearing is the physiological process of registering sound waves as they hit the eardrum. As obvious as it may seem, in order to effectively gather information through listening, we must first be able to physically hear what were listening to. The clearer the sound, the easier the listening process becomes.
Paired with hearing, attending is the other half of the receiving stage in the listening process. Attending is the process of accurately identifying and interpreting particular sounds we hear as words. The sounds we hear have no meaning until we give them their meaning in context. Listening is an active process that constructs meaning from both verbal and nonverbal messages.
The Challenges of Reception
Listeners are often bombarded with a variety of auditory stimuli all at once, so they must differentiate which of those stimuli are speech sounds and which are not. Effective listening involves being able to focus in on speech sounds while disregarding other noise. For instance, a train passenger that hears the captains voice over the loudspeaker understands that the captain is speaking, then deciphers what the captain is saying despite other voices in the cabin. Another example is trying to listen to a friend tell a story while walking down a busy street. In order to best listen to what shes saying, the listener needs to ignore the ambient street sounds.
Attending also involves being able to discern human speech, also known as speech segmentation. 1 Identifying auditory stimuli as speech but not being able to break those speech sounds down into sentences and words would be a failure of the listening process. Discerning speech segmentation can be a more difficult activity when the listener is faced with an unfamiliar language.
The Understanding Stage
The understanding stage is the stage during which the listener determines the context and meanings of the words that are heard.
Learning Objectives
Define the understanding stage of the listening process
Key Takeaways
Key Points
- The understanding stage is the second stage in the listening process.
- Determining the context and meaning of each word is essential to understanding a sentence.
- Understanding what we hear is essential to gathering information.
- Asking questions can help a listener better understand a speakers message or main point.
Key Terms
- Understanding stage: The stage of listening during which the listener determines the context and meanings of the words that are heard.
- comprehension: The totality of intentions or attributes, characters, marks, properties, or qualities, that the object possesses; the totality of intentions that are pertinent to the context of a given discussion.
Stages of Listening: The Understanding Stage
Puzzled: After receiving information through listening, the next step is understanding what you heard.
The second stage in the listening process is the understanding stage. Understanding or comprehension is shared meaning between parties in a communication transaction and constitutes the first step in the listening process. This is the stage during which the listener determines the context and meanings of the words he or she hears. Determining the context and meaning of individual words, as well as assigning meaning in language, is essential to understanding sentences. This, in turn, is essential to understanding a speakers message.
Once the listeners understands the speakers main point, they can begin to sort out the rest of the information they are hearing and decide where it belongs in their mental outline. For example, a political candidate listens to her opponents arguments to understand what policy decisions that opponent supports.
Before getting the big picture of a message, it can be difficult to focus on what the speaker is saying. Think about walking into a lecture class halfway through. You may immediately understand the words and sentences that you are hearing, but not immediately understand what the lecturer is proving or whether what youre hearing in the moment is a main point, side note, or digression.
Understanding what we hear is a huge part of our everyday lives, particularly in terms of gathering basic information. In the office, people listen to their superiors for instructions about what they are to do. At school, students listen to teachers to learn new ideas. We listen to political candidates give policy speeches in order to determine who will get our vote. But without understanding what we hear, none of this everyday listening would relay any practical information to us.
One tactic for better understanding a speakers meaning is to ask questions. Asking questions allows the listener to fill in any holes he or she may have in the mental reconstruction of the speakers message.
The Evaluating Stage
The evaluating stage is the listening stage during which the listener critically assesses the information they received from the speaker.
Learning Objectives
Define the evaluating stage of the listening process
Key Takeaways
Key Points
- The listener assesses the information they have gathered from the speaker both qualitatively and quantitatively.
- Evaluating allows the listener to form an opinion of what they heard.
- Evaluating is important for a listener in terms of how what shes heard will affect her own ideas, decisions, actions, and/or beliefs.
Key Terms
- tangential: Merely touching, referring to a tangent, only indirectly related.
- Evaluating stage: The stage of the listening process during which the listener critically assesses the information they received from the speaker.
- assess: To determine, estimate or judge the value of; to evaluate.
The Evaluating Stage
Focus: Once you understand what you hear, you can focus in on the relevant information.
This stage of the listening process is the one during which the listener assesses the information they received, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Evaluating allows the listener to form an opinion of what they heard and, if necessary, to begin developing a response.
During the evaluating stage, the listener determines whether or not the information they heard and understood from the speaker is well constructed or disorganized, biased or unbiased, true or false, significant or insignificant. They also ascertain how and why the speaker has come up with and conveyed the message that they delivered. This may involve considerations of a speakers personal or professional motivations and goals. For example, a listener may determine that a co-workers vehement condemnation of another for jamming the copier is factually correct, but may also understand that the co-workers child is sick and that may be putting them on edge. A voter who listens to and understands the points made in a political candidates stump speech can decide whether or not those points were convincing enough to earn their vote.
The evaluating stage occurs most effectively once the listener fully understands what the speaker is trying to say. While we can, and sometimes do, form opinions of information and ideas that we dont fully understandor even that we misunderstanddoing so is not often ideal in the long run. Having a clear understanding of a speakers message allows a listener to evaluate that message without getting bogged down in ambiguities or spending unnecessary time and energy addressing points that may be tangential or otherwise nonessential.
This stage of critical analysis is important for a listener in terms of how what they heard will affect their own ideas, decisions, actions, and/or beliefs.
The Responding Stage
The responding stage is when the listener provides verbal and/or nonverbal reactions to what she hears.
Learning Objectives
Define the responding stage of the listening process
Key Takeaways
Key Points
- The speaker looks for responses from the listener to determine if her message is being understood and/or considered.
- When a listener responds verbally to what she hears, the speaker/listener roles are reversed.
- Based on the listeners responses, the speaker can choose to either adjust or continue with the delivery of her message.
Key Terms
- Responding stage: The listening stage wherein the listener provides verbal and/or nonverbal reactions to what she hears.
The Responding Stage
The responding stage is the stage of the listening process wherein the listener provides verbal and/or nonverbal reactions based on short- or long-term memory. Following the remembering stage, a listener can respond to what they hear either verbally or non-verbally. Nonverbal signals can include gestures such as nodding, making eye contact, tapping a pen, fidgeting, scratching or cocking their head, smiling, rolling their eyes, grimacing, or any other body language. These kinds of responses can be displayed purposefully or involuntarily. Responding verbally might involve asking a question, requesting additional information, redirecting or changing the focus of a conversation, cutting off a speaker, or repeating what a speaker has said back to her in order to verify that the received message matches the intended message.
Nonverbal responses like nodding or eye contact allow the listener to communicate their level of interest without interrupting the speaker, thereby preserving the speaker/listener roles. When a listener responds verbally to what they hear and rememberfor example, with a question or a commentthe speaker/listener roles are reversed, at least momentarily.
Responding adds action to the listening process, which would otherwise be an outwardly passive process. Oftentimes, the speaker looks for verbal and nonverbal responses from the listener to determine if and how their message is being understood and/or considered. Based on the listeners responses, the speaker can choose to either adjust or continue with the delivery of her message. For example, if a listeners brow is furrowed and their arms are crossed, the speaker may determine that she needs to lighten their tone to better communicate their point. If a listener is smiling and nodding or asking questions, the speaker may feel that the listener is engaged and her message is being communicated effectively.
The listener: By holding her hand up to her chin, this woman is giving a nonverbal signal that she is concentrating on what the speaker [not pictured] is saying.
The Remembering Stage
The remembering stage occurs as the listener categorizes and retains the information shes gathering from the speaker.
Learning Objectives
Define the remembering stage of the listening process
Key Takeaways
Key Points
- Memory is essential throughout the listening process.
- Memory lets the speaker put what she hears in the context of what shes heard before.
- Using information immediately after receiving it enhances information retention.
- Distracted or mindless listening reduces information retention.
Key Terms
- memory: The ability of an organism to record information about things or events with the facility of recalling them later at will.
- recall: Memory; the ability to remember.
- Remembering stage: The stage of listening wherein the listener categorizes and retains the information shes gathering from the speaker.
The Remembering Stage
Memory: Remembering what you hear is key to effective listening.
In the listening process, the remembering stage occurs as the listener categorizes and retains the information shes gathered from the speaker for future access. The resultmemoryallows the person to record information about people, objects and events for later recall. This happens both during and after the speakers delivery.
Memory is essential throughout the listening process. We depend on our memory to fill in the blanks when were listening and to let us place what were hearing at the moment in the context of what weve heard before. If, for example, you forgot everything that you heard immediately after you heard it, you would not be able to follow along with what a speaker says, and conversations would be impossible. Moreover, a friend who expresses fear about a dog she sees on the sidewalk ahead can help you recall that the friend began the conversation with her childhood memory of being attacked by a dog.
Remembering previous information is critical to moving forward. Similarly, making associations to past remembered information can help a listener understand what she is currently hearing in a wider context. In listening to a lecture about the symptoms of depression, for example, a listener might make a connection to the description of a character in a novel that she read years before.
Using information immediately after receiving it enhances information retention and lessens the forgetting curve, or the rate at which we no longer retain information in our memory. Conversely, retention is lessened when we engage in mindless listening, and little effort is made to understand a speakers message.
Because everyone has different memories, the speaker and the listener may attach different meanings to the same statement. In this sense, establishing common ground in terms of context is extremely important, both for listeners and speakers.