Question

What are some examples of communication noise? How do they interfere with the process of clear communication?

Answer 1

1. Physical noise

Physical noise is interference that is external to both speaker and listener; it hampers the physical transmission of the signal or message.

Examples of physical noise:

loud party at the neighbors while you’re trying to record

loud kids who don’t want to take their nap

irritating hum of your computer, air conditioner, or heater.

2. Physiological noise

Physiological noise is created by barriers within the sender or receiver.

Examples of physiological noise on the podcaster’s side:

articulation problems

mumbling

talking too fast

talking too slow

forgetting to pause

forgetting to breathe

An example of physiological noise on the listener’s side: hearing problems. Maybe the listener can’t hear high tones as clearly as they used to. For some, low tones are the problem. Their difficulty in literally hearing words and sounds becomes physiological noise.

3. Psychological noise

Psychological noise is mental interference in the speaker or listener.

Three examples of psychological noise are wandering thoughts, preconceived ideas, and sarcasm.

i, WANDERING THOUGHTS

It is an obstacle because your listener may be distracted and have difficulty keeping up with you. This is often a problem when talking about abstract ideas.

ii, PRECONCEIVED IDEAS

Another type of psychological noise is when people think they already know something. That noise interferes with a listener’s willingness to hear a new perspective.

Other preconceived ideas include biases, prejudices, presuppositions, and closed-mindedness.

iii, SARCASM

If you don’t care to actually persuade someone to see things your way, then sarcasm is the easy way.Sarcasm is noise to your listener unless your listener already agrees with you. If your listener disagrees with you, then sarcasm guarantees they won’t pay attention to your message.

Finally, there is another type of noise that appears to be psychological, but it’s actually linguistic and deserves its own category.

4.Semantic noise

Semantic noise is interference created when the speaker and listener have different meaning systems.

JARGON CAN BE SEMANTIC NOISE

Jargon is a fantastic linguistic shortcut. If everyone listening agrees and understands the terminology, then jargon makes communication quicker and clearer.