Attention
Attention
Although the first part of listening process, sensing, is about reception, when we are focusing on what we can do to be better listeners this step is best expressed as an active perceptual process—attention.
Attention: Active Sensing
Attention is another crucial component to effective listening. In order to engage in effective listening behaviors, we need to be willing and able to focus or concentrate our awareness. These are elements of attention. Farrow (1963) defines attention as that mental state in which there is an intense voluntary direction and concentration of consciousness upon an object (20). That is, attention requires effort and focus, a certain discipline. As a result, we develop an increased clarity of perception. The opposite of attention is mindlessness. Langer (1989) and Brownell (2006) have identified mindlessness, a state in which individuals rely heavily on preconceived notions, to the extent that they fail to listen to their environment. Mindlessness, then, interferes with the listening process. In other words, in order to be competent listeners, we must ensure that our internal predispositions are not interfering with the listening process.
Another obstacle to attention is noise, the aggregate of sound and auditory stimuli around us. Our brains must filter auditory information from background noise and focus on a limited number of auditory stimuli at any particular time. Otherwise, overloaded with sensory information, our brains would be rendered unable to function. Therefore, we develop selective attention, a state of sensory filtering during which we attend to those auditory cues that arouse our interest, relegating the rest to the background noise. In other words, we select what we hear from a vast array of possibilities. A negative side effect of this situation is that in our desire to attend to several things at the same time, we often process the messages partially or inaccurately. The result is that we fail to hear what is really important. Individuals often find that it is simply not enough to pay attention; we need to discern what to listen for. In other words, we need to define our listening goals (see below on defining listening goals). More often than not, the combination of selective attention and missing out on the “right” information will have an adverse effect on our listening ability and lead us to errors and misunderstandings.
