_The Listening Environment
_The
listening environment, the conceptual space where we use our hearing
for the purpose of understanding what other people are saying, plays a
vital role in determining how successful we might be in this purpose.
This space is largely physical, but there are also psychological and
expressive communication components to it:
1. Attention.
Attention is the most important component of the listening environment, the least well-understood, and the component that most often fails. For fail-safe communication, it is important that both communication parties, the speaker and the listener, are attending. Macroaudiology emphasises this point very strongly.
The role of the speaker is to make sure that the listener is attending. The speaker initiates the communication, and has the responsibility of determining whether the listener is attending or not. If the speaker does not check this, their effort in communication may be totally wasted.
The role do the listener is to attend to the speaker and to ensure that the message is understood.
One of the important roles of our hearing process is to ensure that we are attending whenever someone else speaks to us. Normally all of this works automatically, but needless to say, it is one of the first things to go wrong when the hearing process is not working with a normal level of efficiency.
2. Signal to Noise Ratio.
Signal to noise ratio refers to the relative strength of the information being transmitted with respect to noise which might be degrading or competing with that signal. it affects auditory redundancy.
Signal strength is determined by a number of factors:
1. Attention.
Attention is the most important component of the listening environment, the least well-understood, and the component that most often fails. For fail-safe communication, it is important that both communication parties, the speaker and the listener, are attending. Macroaudiology emphasises this point very strongly.
The role of the speaker is to make sure that the listener is attending. The speaker initiates the communication, and has the responsibility of determining whether the listener is attending or not. If the speaker does not check this, their effort in communication may be totally wasted.
The role do the listener is to attend to the speaker and to ensure that the message is understood.
One of the important roles of our hearing process is to ensure that we are attending whenever someone else speaks to us. Normally all of this works automatically, but needless to say, it is one of the first things to go wrong when the hearing process is not working with a normal level of efficiency.
2. Signal to Noise Ratio.
Signal to noise ratio refers to the relative strength of the information being transmitted with respect to noise which might be degrading or competing with that signal. it affects auditory redundancy.
Signal strength is determined by a number of factors:
- The acoustical energy of the speaker's voice - how loudly the person is speaker.
- Whether the speaker is facing the listener - this will influence how clearly the listener perceives the speech.
- How far the speaker is from the listener - speech signal integrity begins to degrade at distances greater than about 3 m.
- How clearly the speaker articulates - some people to mumble.
- The familiarity to the listener of the speaker's voice and accent.
- Ambient acoustical noise levels.
- Distracting activities.
- Ambient acoustical reverberation characteristics.
- Relevance of the subject to the listener.