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Pay Attention

Before we can react appropriately to what a person says, we must pay attention to it. Unfortunately, most people tend to think they are better at this than they really are. William Keefe (1972) writes:

Not all in this situation see themselves for what they are. Many believe themselves to be good listeners. But they cannot back up their laudatory selfanalysis. The Opinion Research Corporation of Princeton, New Jersey, carried out a survey in four large companies. The findings showed that 77 percent of the supervisors interviewed felt themselves to be good listeners. Other data (from their subordinates) gave them the lie. (p. 14)

Earlier in this chapter we stated that the threshold for listening could be improved (lowered to detect more stimuli) by changes in a person's motivation. Thus, a determined effort to pay attention has been found to improve a person's listening considerably.

In addition, those who are otherwise good communicators may not be good listeners. Brilhart (1965) showed that there is no necessary correlation between skill as a communicator and skill as a listener. In fact, several of her findings suggested that good communicators were relatively poor listeners (i.e., there were negative correlations). Thus, if you feel yourself to be a relatively effective speaker, you are even more likely to need listening improvement.

Perhaps you are wondering if it is even possible to improve a person's listening ability. Numerous studies indicate that dramatic improvements are possible even with minimal training (Keller, I960).

In a study by Parkin, et al. (1988) it was found that active listening using repetition had a better recall effect than listening passively.

While listening to a passage of a text about the Florida Everglades, questions would arise about a fact they (the subjects) had just heard. Repetition would occur immediately, after one minute, two minutes, and four minutes. During this time the subjects continued to listen to the passage, Three hours later the subjects were given surprise recall tests on questions they had answered during the passage.

The results were: immediate repetition of a question produced poorer recall than a question repeated after some time. A question repeated after four minutes produced greater recall than those repeated after one or two minutes.

Other studies suggest that the amount of effort it takes to retrieve information from memory correlates positively with how well it will be remembered. Thus more effort to recapture information after four minutes produced better results.

In the second condition, repetition was deleted. The time lag when asking questions did not enhance recall. Thus the enhanced recall from the first experiment came from repetition rather than time lag.

Thus active listening increases recall ability. An activity during breaks in listening—such as notetaking—greatly enhances learning over that resulting from passive listening.

Listen for Main Points or Ideas

A second way to improve your listening is to maintain your motivation to pay-attention by listening for the specific main ideas in a message. Earlier in this chapter we discussed the role that attention plays in listening. Numerous experimental studies indicate that simply paying attention is one of the most important ways of improving your listening.

Keller describes the techniques this way:

Anticipatory set is defined as the ability to say to oneself as he listens, "I imagine that what the speaker is trying to say is...." This anticipation and comparing of expectation with outcome may cause the listener to pay atten­tion in order to see if he is right. (Keller, 1960, p. 30)

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