6.2: Stages of the Listening Process

The Six Steps in Listening

Have you ever baked a cake or followed a new recipe for dinner? If you have, then you are aware that you needed to follow a series of steps to get to the end result. When we listen to others, we rarely stop to consider that there are multiple steps involved in the listening process. On the surface, listening seems less complex than baking. However, there are several stages of listening that occur rapidly, involving many nuances that impact how well we listen. In this section, we explain each stage of the listening process, including receiving, attending, interpreting, recalling, evaluating, and responding to messages.

Receiving

In Chapter 1 you learned about how messages are received, which builds the foundation for the listening process. Receiving is taking in information using our auditory and visual senses. Hearing is one of our senses that allows us to receive messages through sound. Sight is also important because visual cues can influence how you receive a message. Therefore, before you get to any other stage in the listening process, you must receive stimuli. As we listen to someone speak, we may not consciously realize how important these channels are, but they influence how we interpret messages.

Did You Know?

In Chapter 3, you learned the definition of culture and were provided with some examples of co-cultures. One co-culture that is important to address is Deaf culture. The 2022 Academy Awards highlighted this co-culture by awarding the Best Picture Oscar to the movie CODA. The movie provided insight into the Deaf community in a unique way that was magnificent. Individuals with varying amounts of hearing loss may not receive a message if they are unable to hear it, and would have more difficulty in the receiving stage of the listening process. The movie appropriately highlighted that deafness and hearing loss can occur at any age. Communicating with a person who has hearing loss requires thought and skill regardless of how old they are.

We want to also highlight another co-culture because it involves a group of individuals whose hearing loss is specific to age. Older adults are considered to be those who are 65 and older. Normal aging results in a slow down of reflexes and processing. Older adults also suffer from presbycusis, which is the normal hearing loss associated with age. Whether one has hearing loss associated with age (presbycusis), or is someone who had hearing loss early in life, it is more difficult for deaf or hearing impaired individuals to distinguish certain sounds.

Whether your communication is with someone young, or older, how can you attempt to communicate with them so that they can listen more effectively? According to scholar Jake Harwood (2017), sounds like “s” or “th” can be difficult to distinguish, especially when the communication is taking place in an environment that is noisy. To allow for optimum communication, it is best to place any person with hearing loss in a location that has three walls around them. Have them sit at the back wall and face you so that they can also read your lips. The best communication will take place if the room is somewhat quiet so that background noise is filtered out.

Reflection Questions

1. Do you have someone in your life who has hearing loss, and if so, do you find it difficult to communicate with them?
2. What do you think you have learned that you might consider when you encounter someone who is deaf or has hearing loss?

Attending

We are bombarded with stimuli daily, so how do you decide what to pay attention to? In Chapter 3 you learned about the first part of the perception process, and attending in the listening process is much like the selection process in perception. Attending in listening means filtering out what is salient (i.e., noticeable or important). We often attend to stimuli that are visually or audibly stimulating. For example, if you hear a new song on Spotify, the tune might be so great that you stop to do a Google search to find the lyrics—or, as your Instagram or Tik Tok feed shows the latest music video by your favorite artist, you may focus on that and ignore everything else that is showing in your feed. We also attend to stimuli that appeal to our needs or interests. In class, you might find yourself starting to tune out until your instructor says the word exam. At this point, you might tune in because they are about to cover important information that can impact your grade. The content is salient as it meets a need that is important to you.

Interpreting

The next stage in the listening process is interpreting. Interpreting is integrating both visual and auditory cues to make sense of, or attribute meaning to, what we hear. It is how we understand a message. We base our interpretations on our previous understanding of phenomena in our world. We observe nonverbal cues, such as tone of voice, facial expression, or eye contact to be able to interpret a message correctly. One of our authors shares this story:

I was teaching a class once and I heard a student “sigh” loudly. I looked at her face to see if I understood the auditory cue. A sigh can be due to boredom, but it could also be that she was thinking of her recent break-up. I then studied her face and saw that she looked sad. I would not have been able to interpret her message had I not been able to hear her sigh, and see her face.

Recalling

Have you ever wondered why you may not remember what your partner, instructor, or boss told you only a day or two earlier? As humans, we are so busy in our lives, that sometimes we find it difficult to remember what we were just told. In some circumstances that may not be a problem, but in other cases, our memory could get us into trouble. Recalling is the ability to remember the information one receives. Recalling information is difficult for many people, and this is impacted by where our memories are stored. According to Owen Hargie (2010), we forget about 50% of what we hear immediately after hearing it. After eight hours we recall about 35% and can recall about 20% after an entire day. Recalling what your partner’s favorite food is, what genre of music they like, or where their favorite vacation spot is might be important for that relationship to develop. If we are not able to recall these kinds of details, our partners may think we are not that important to them.

Evaluating

Have you ever listened to a friend or partner tell you why they did not show up to a party? Or, have your parents given you “the look” when you tried to tell them why you were not home when you were supposed to be? Evaluating is the stage of listening where one assesses the validity and credibility of the message. Evaluating what we hear is a normal part of communication. Whether we are listening to the news, a professor, or a friend or loved one, this means that to some degree we are judging the speaker's comments. It is important to think about the words that are used, the completeness of the message, and the truthfulness of the message. Critical thinking is essential to judge what you hear accurately. No one comes to any communicative event without some form of bias. So whether you are listening to a speech about COVID-19 or immigration, or whether you are listening to your partner tell you that you have said something that made them feel bad, you will find that you immediately begin to break down their message and compare it to what you believe to be true.

The process of evaluation can be quick, or it can be painstakingly long. If the goal is to become the best communicator you can and to develop authentic relationships then it is important to focus on what is being said, not just who is saying it. Humans tend to judge others before a message has been conveyed, so we owe it to ourselves to be as open as we can to what we are hearing and go through a critical process of analyzing the message before responding.

Responding

When we communicate with others, there is an expectation that they will provide us with some form of feedback. Can you imagine pouring your heart out to your best friend about your recent devastating break-up, and only receiving a blank stare in return? Of course not! We do expect that our messages will be acknowledged. This last stage in the listening process is responding. Responding is sending verbal and nonverbal feedback to a message you received. When communicating with anyone, there is some expectation that people will respond to what you are saying offering some kind of acknowledgment that they hear you speaking to them.

Back-Channel Cues

As communicators, we may provide back-channel cues as a type of response. Back-channel cues are verbal or nonverbal forms of feedback that suggest we are listening. These include such behaviors as nodding our heads, leaning toward a speaker, or saying "uh-huh" or "right," but that does not necessarily mean we were listening intently. If you recall, earlier in this chapter one of our authors shared an example of where she was not listening to her daughter, even though she was using a back-channel cue. If someone responds by looking away, saying “mmhm” while using their phone, or shifting in their seat, we would interpret those cues negatively. However, if someone is looking at us and nodding their head while saying “mmhm,” we interpret such cues positively. Both verbal and nonverbal response cues do not always represent authentic listening, so it is important to pay attention to the cues that you are giving. Managing your responses to your speaker is one of many aspects of listening that we must learn to manage to be an effective listener.