- Series
- Where minds meet
- Air Date
- 1962-12-13
- Duration
- 00:29:12
- Episode Description
- The Obstacle Course: Communications Barriers
- Series Description
- Discussions explore world of speech, conducted by Professors John Freund and Arnold Nelson of Western Michigan University
- Subject(s)
- Creator(s)
- Western Michigan University (Producer)
- Contributors
- Freund, John (Host)Nelson, Arnold (Host)
- Genre(s)
- Geographic Region(s)
- regions
- Time Period
- 1961-1970
[00:25 - 00:27]
I mean I couldn't quite make that out.
[00:27 - 00:31]
Well Don that was the one hundredth carbon copy of a man's voice.
[00:31 - 00:36]
Knowledge into this is this is actually there.
[00:36 - 00:40]
How did that sound. That was the 40th carbon I'd say that was sufficiently
[00:40 - 00:44]
clear.
[00:44 - 00:49]
A series of explorations in human communication conducted by professors John Prine
[00:49 - 00:54]
and annulled Nelson of the Department of English Western Michigan University where
[00:54 - 00:59]
minds meet is produced and recorded by WMU under a grant from the National
[00:59 - 01:02]
Association of educational broadcasters.
[01:02 - 01:07]
In a shrinking world where minds meet in words or not at all man
[01:07 - 01:11]
speech is his most decisive act. These discussions explore this
[01:11 - 01:16]
world of speech. Very topic for today is the
[01:16 - 01:21]
obstacle course distortion. Here are professors frind and
[01:21 - 01:23]
Nelson.
[01:23 - 01:26]
This is John freind and this is Donald Nelson.
[01:26 - 01:30]
Today we're concerned with failures in communication. What kinds of failures there are and
[01:30 - 01:32]
how we can avoid them.
[01:32 - 01:37]
And that recording of a man's voice that we just heard illustrates one kind of failure that which
[01:37 - 01:41]
is due to noise in the channel something like static. The effect of this
[01:41 - 01:45]
noise is to distort the message sometimes to destroy it completely.
[01:45 - 01:50]
Well as these are key terms John. Noise and distortion. Suppose we try to define them
[01:50 - 01:55]
first. I'd say that noises anything that impairs the message that changes it into
[01:55 - 02:00]
something else and static is is one example but it doesn't have to be sound.
[02:00 - 02:04]
The fuzziness in a typed carbon is also noise. The snow on a TV
[02:04 - 02:09]
screen that blurs the picture is another example or fog that prevents a driver from
[02:09 - 02:10]
seeing the road.
[02:10 - 02:15]
All of these and many more examples of noise later on in this program will give our
[02:15 - 02:20]
audience a chance to take part in an experiment in which even a message can act as noise
[02:20 - 02:25]
and not the other term distortion means simply the effect of noise on a
[02:25 - 02:26]
message.
[02:26 - 02:31]
Noise acting on a message produces distortion. Now this little experiment
[02:31 - 02:36]
we started out with we had to explain what we were trying to show. First of all
[02:36 - 02:41]
we recorded a man saying is this sufficiently clear. Then we made a copy by
[02:41 - 02:45]
recording that original a second copy was made from the first the third from the second and
[02:45 - 02:46]
so on.
[02:46 - 02:51]
One hundred fifty times what we played first in our opening was the 100 to the
[02:51 - 02:56]
one hundred fifty copies. Next we played the 40th copy. Well why don't we play now
[02:56 - 03:01]
the original. And the first ten copies to show the way noise in the store should gradually
[03:01 - 03:02]
increase.
[03:02 - 03:07]
Is this sufficiently clear. Is this sufficiently
[03:07 - 03:13]
clear. Is this sufficiently clear.
[03:13 - 03:18]
Is this sufficiently clear. Is this sufficiently
[03:18 - 03:24]
clear. Is this sufficiently clear.
[03:24 - 03:29]
Is this sufficiently clear. Is this sufficiently
[03:29 - 03:36]
clear. Is this sufficiently clear.
[03:36 - 03:39]
Is this sufficiently clear.
[03:39 - 03:44]
I noticed a little background noise. Typewriter I believe yes. And a
[03:44 - 03:46]
click probably made when the recorder was turned on.
[03:46 - 03:51]
But there isn't really much serious distortion of the message here. No the words don't become
[03:51 - 03:56]
seriously distorted until much later. Now if we play every twenty fifth copy
[03:56 - 04:00]
I'm sure the audience will see much more clearly the accumulated effects of noise.
[04:00 - 04:05]
Yes the static will increase the clicks will turn into thumps and the words
[04:05 - 04:07]
will become very difficult to make out.
[04:07 - 04:12]
Is this sufficiently clear. Is this
[04:12 - 04:15]
sufficiently clear. Just.
[04:15 - 04:37]
I suppose John that if we had made a thousand carbons the last would be nothing more than it
[04:37 - 04:42]
has everything would be flatten out so that every song would be like every other song.
[04:42 - 04:47]
Although our audience was probably able to make up the words of the hundred fifty a copy they were able to
[04:47 - 04:52]
do so only because they had heard what had gone before and knew what to listen for. But
[04:52 - 04:57]
in several experiments we conducted with this recording people who listened to the last copy first
[04:57 - 05:02]
weren't even able to recognise the sound as that of the human voice. Hearing it in reverse
[05:02 - 05:06]
order they weren't able to make up the words until the 90th copy.
[05:06 - 05:10]
Well from copies one hundred fifty back to 130 or so. Several of them said it
[05:10 - 05:15]
sounded like Tom Tom and I guess those were the clicks. It didn't sound to them like a voice
[05:15 - 05:18]
until they got back to about a hundred and tenth copy.
[05:18 - 05:23]
Well with those last copies they didn't know what to pay attention to. They didn't know what we
[05:23 - 05:26]
considered the message and what we considered the noise.
[05:26 - 05:30]
Well this leads us not directly to an experiment for our audience today. What we want to
[05:30 - 05:35]
demonstrate is that noise is defined by the listener noises anything the
[05:35 - 05:37]
listener doesn't want to hear.
[05:37 - 05:42]
Right because what we're going to do is read two jokes simultaneously. You
[05:42 - 05:47]
read one or the other and will ask the audience to pick whichever voice they want to and
[05:47 - 05:51]
try to listen. Then I have to block out the other one so that the one they listen to will be for
[05:51 - 05:55]
them the intended message and the other will act as noise.
[05:55 - 06:01]
We found this a little hard to get used to ourselves. Subjects that we experimented
[06:01 - 06:05]
with said that they had to make their choice quickly but if they focused on one voice they
[06:05 - 06:09]
found that they could separate them and follow one joke rather easily.
[06:09 - 06:14]
Well hear them are our two voices traveling across one channel at the same time listen to
[06:14 - 06:19]
one of them going to go out and spend all right out of
[06:19 - 06:24]
our rulings a lot of evenings little what any man in the club are getting with an elder and I didn't know he was
[06:24 - 06:29]
unable to answer. Littlejohn had several minutes to join him into
[06:29 - 06:31]
marker I finally they were why doesn't the ground I grew
[06:31 - 06:39]
mine after some were deliberate. He was called upon to lay on the radio and it was old and pulled
[06:39 - 06:44]
until as it was he set off again the bottom and it was up to
[06:44 - 06:49]
these below and I suggested to my brother but how do I get on the bottom then
[06:49 - 06:51]
another minute and he answered Barker.
[06:51 - 06:57]
In spite of all the noise you were making I could hear my joke why I didn't hear any noise at all
[06:57 - 07:02]
from my point of view but of one thing we can be sure nobody in our audience heard more
[07:02 - 07:07]
than one of these fine jokes so we had to do it again this time. They can try
[07:07 - 07:08]
focusing again.
[07:08 - 07:12]
If they missed both jokes or they can tune into the one that they were listening to
[07:12 - 07:18]
one minute late Center and the young going to go out and spend all right out of our rulings a lot I
[07:18 - 07:23]
love my evenings little what any man in the club are getting with an elder and what I didn't know he was unable to answer.
[07:23 - 07:28]
Littlejohn had several minutes to Parker and I finally they were why
[07:28 - 07:32]
doesn't the ground make you lose any object or go topper is not mine.
[07:32 - 07:37]
After some were deliberate he was called upon to lay down the reason why Holden pulled until as it
[07:37 - 07:42]
was he set off again the School starts at the bottom and it was up to these below
[07:42 - 07:47]
and I suggested to my brother but how do I get on the bottom but the mother missed
[07:47 - 07:49]
any I answered Barker.
[07:49 - 07:55]
I Neo What would you say now that this has to do with the main point of our program
[07:55 - 07:55]
today.
[07:55 - 08:00]
Well of course we want to show that noise is always present in communication. If you can
[08:00 - 08:05]
know in advance what kind of noise there will be as we have just shown it's possible to
[08:05 - 08:10]
cancel out its harmful effects in human communication. The listener frequently
[08:10 - 08:15]
has to determine for himself both what constitutes a noise and how to combat it.
[08:15 - 08:19]
Noises like weeds. If you're trying to raise carrots say and you have all
[08:19 - 08:24]
parsley intruding in the garden. Well the parsley is like a weed but if you're trying to raise
[08:24 - 08:26]
partially then the carrots are the weeds.
[08:26 - 08:31]
What do you say though that knowing in advance what the noise will be helps combat it.
[08:31 - 08:33]
But how does one know this in advance.
[08:33 - 08:38]
Well this is shown in the experiments with the jokes. As soon as the listener perceives
[08:38 - 08:43]
something about the structure of the message he's able to predict something about the rest of it. The
[08:43 - 08:47]
more he listens the easier it gets the more he listens.
[08:47 - 08:51]
The more redundancy there is in the message that's right as the message proceeds. Things are
[08:51 - 08:56]
repeated. Indeed would you call structure is redundancy. That is
[08:56 - 09:00]
regularity order perceivable pattern in language we call is
[09:00 - 09:01]
grammar right.
[09:01 - 09:06]
It's often said that the English language is about 50 percent redundant. That
[09:06 - 09:11]
means that in our grammar we repeat a piece of information approximately twice.
[09:11 - 09:16]
For example in the sentence all these man are thieves. The idea of
[09:16 - 09:19]
plural more than one is found in every word.
[09:19 - 09:24]
If a person were listening then with 100 percent efficiency once would be enough.
[09:24 - 09:28]
Write something like the man is thief. Yes it would be more
[09:28 - 09:33]
economical we might say but much more likely to suffer distortion. So the idea of
[09:33 - 09:37]
plural is actually presented five times for good measure. All
[09:37 - 09:41]
these men are thieves.
[09:41 - 09:45]
Yes well the structure of a message is all important. If the structure that is the
[09:45 - 09:50]
relationship of one part to another is not sharply defined then the message will
[09:50 - 09:55]
probably be distorted. And this is true of any message not just a sentence.
[09:55 - 09:59]
Well anybody who ever came into the middle of a movie knows this and we can we can
[09:59 - 10:04]
demonstrate this with our next experiment. We took a message and sent it through nine
[10:04 - 10:09]
people. That is you told a story to a student and asked him to tell it to another student
[10:09 - 10:14]
and so on. And thus we have nine copies a record of how much distortion
[10:14 - 10:16]
occurs and what kind.
[10:16 - 10:20]
Yes this of course is not a matter of mechanical noise. Each student in this experiment
[10:20 - 10:25]
delivered the message directly to the next one and each student was trying his best
[10:25 - 10:31]
to get the message from the one who told it to him and also to give an accurate me to the next person.
[10:31 - 10:35]
Now we want our audience to listen to this series and notice how
[10:35 - 10:40]
noise increases the distortion. But first let's play the message as it
[10:40 - 10:43]
was repeated by the last person in the series.
[10:43 - 10:48]
This story has to do with communications communication and how noise
[10:48 - 10:53]
affects communication. There's a story about two men riding on a bus.
[10:53 - 10:58]
The first man asked a second man if this station was
[10:58 - 11:03]
Webber while the second man thought the first man and said
[11:03 - 11:09]
Is this Thursday. The first man
[11:09 - 11:15]
thought the second man had said to him Are you thirsty.
[11:15 - 11:21]
This must be very confusing for our audience I think so the structure is a blur.
[11:21 - 11:26]
This means that our audience can't get the point can't tell noise from message.
[11:26 - 11:30]
They're the tenth man in the series so to speak. What would they tell number 11.
[11:30 - 11:35]
Well why don't we play the original as I told it to the first student. I think the original
[11:35 - 11:39]
message has a very clear structure. One of the obstacles to Clear
[11:39 - 11:43]
communication is noise when noise is present. The
[11:43 - 11:48]
speaker must contract that by making his message louder. Or by
[11:48 - 11:53]
making it clearer or by making it more often or even all
[11:53 - 11:54]
three.
[11:54 - 11:59]
Here's an old joke about this problem. Two men were seated together on a very
[11:59 - 12:05]
noisy bus. The bus was loaded with noisy children coming home from school.
[12:05 - 12:10]
The men didn't say much to one another because it was too hard to talk about all this racket.
[12:10 - 12:15]
One of them was looking out the window as the bus passed through a small town. Is this
[12:15 - 12:20]
Wembley. He shouted. No the other one said it's Thursday.
[12:20 - 12:23]
So Ahmed said the first one let's get off and have a drink.
[12:23 - 12:29]
Well I need before we play the other versions let's note some of the unusual changes that have occurred.
[12:29 - 12:35]
By the end of the series the proper name Wembley had turned into flipper will station a rather
[12:35 - 12:40]
fantastic distortion. I think our audience will be interested in tracing how this change came
[12:40 - 12:40]
about.
[12:40 - 12:45]
And another obvious change concerns the tone of the joke in the original part of the humor I think
[12:45 - 12:50]
lies in the surprising turn of events by which the two men suddenly change their
[12:50 - 12:54]
plans right instead of proceeding to their destination they suddenly decide to go to the nearest
[12:54 - 12:55]
bar.
[12:55 - 13:00]
And in the final version there's no mention of drinking at all. As our audience listens they will want to
[13:00 - 13:05]
notice how drinking comes to be left out. There's one other important thing to
[13:05 - 13:09]
notice the joke was just used as an illustration of a general point about
[13:09 - 13:12]
communication. What happens to this general point.
[13:12 - 13:17]
Well let's play these successive copies of the original and ask our audience to listen
[13:17 - 13:21]
particularly to how these three changes developed first how Wembley becomes whippoorwill station
[13:21 - 13:27]
drinking disappears completely and finally how the general point is distorted.
[13:27 - 13:31]
Well here's the story as repeated repeated by the student who heard from me in
[13:31 - 13:36]
communications the hardest thing to overcome is noise and to overcome noise we usually
[13:36 - 13:42]
speak louder so that the person that we're speaking to can hear us. For an
[13:42 - 13:47]
example of this two men were riding home on a bus or a noisy bus with noisy
[13:47 - 13:52]
children. And the man didn't speak too much because of the noise.
[13:52 - 13:56]
But they haven't been going to this town. And one fellow says is this
[13:56 - 14:01]
Wembley and the other fella says no this is Thursday. He says so my
[14:01 - 14:02]
let's get off and get a drink.
[14:02 - 14:08]
I wonder if our audience caught any change in the plantation of that crucial word Wembley.
[14:08 - 14:13]
Well that was a very slight change unlike another one that I noticed the change from have a
[14:13 - 14:18]
drink to get a drink that might be slight on you but I never heard a child getting up in the middle of the
[14:18 - 14:20]
night to have a drink of water right.
[14:20 - 14:25]
You have an alcoholic drink you get a drink of water.
[14:25 - 14:29]
Well let's hear what happened in the next two versions.
[14:29 - 14:34]
The hardest thing to overcome in communication is noise. An
[14:34 - 14:39]
example of this is two men were riding home on a bus
[14:39 - 14:45]
and they're riding along and there was lots of noise and they didn't
[14:45 - 14:49]
talk much but they came past this one station and
[14:49 - 14:53]
the name of it was Wembley. So the man's yells off
[14:53 - 15:00]
this Wednesday is this Wimbley. And the other man says no
[15:00 - 15:05]
this is Thursday. A lot of the crowd. And so the
[15:05 - 15:08]
other guy said so much let's go off and get a drink.
[15:08 - 15:18]
The hardest thing to overcome in communications is now is a good example of this is
[15:18 - 15:24]
an incident that occurred the two men riding home on a bus in a bus
[15:24 - 15:29]
as natural as quite noisy and they came to this one station had been
[15:29 - 15:34]
talking but not to any great extent. They came to this one station and one gentleman asked the
[15:34 - 15:39]
others. This was when Playstation which it really was and other
[15:39 - 15:43]
gentleman because of the noise in a fair and said no this was
[15:43 - 15:48]
Thursday and jam and asked the first
[15:48 - 15:51]
question said I am too so let's get off and get a drink.
[15:51 - 15:58]
The change in the pronunciation of Wembley is not quite definite. It's now
[15:58 - 16:01]
Wimbley and the word station is added.
[16:01 - 16:06]
I noticed that the general point about noise is getting shorter but it's still there. Well
[16:06 - 16:09]
let's listen out of the fourth version of the message.
[16:09 - 16:14]
The hardest thing in community in trying to communicate to someone is nice. You know the hardest thing to
[16:14 - 16:19]
overcome in communicating and a good example of this is an example of these two men
[16:19 - 16:23]
who are riding on a bus and this bus is real real noisy and is a
[16:23 - 16:28]
protestation he says to the one guy. Is this Wembley station and
[16:28 - 16:33]
the other fellow. Because of all the noise on the bus you know you can't really understand and
[16:33 - 16:38]
he says no he says he he thought he said Thursday station.
[16:38 - 16:42]
This is Thursday he says.
[16:42 - 16:46]
Well I am too so let's get off the bus because he thought he said Thursday
[16:46 - 16:49]
Stan.
[16:49 - 16:54]
Yeah well the g thing I noticed was the uncertainty in the speaker.
[16:54 - 16:59]
She makes an obvious attempt to be explicit and she's really not sure that she's getting her point
[16:59 - 16:59]
across.
[16:59 - 17:04]
If she even asks whether he understands this doesn't help him feel more certain of
[17:04 - 17:06]
his Yaz full of doubt.
[17:06 - 17:11]
Well here are the next two versions. I think our listeners will see clearly the result of this cone
[17:11 - 17:17]
of uncertainty the distortion at this point becomes more destructive.
[17:17 - 17:21]
Well one of the most difficult things about communication is
[17:21 - 17:26]
noice it completely distorts the entire
[17:26 - 17:32]
sound and everything. And a good example of this was when
[17:32 - 17:36]
Woodward to a gentleman riding on a bus. And
[17:36 - 17:41]
so they were riding along and the one gentleman
[17:41 - 17:45]
I said gentleman if this was one play station.
[17:45 - 17:53]
Don't laugh it isn't funny. And so the next guy. It
[17:53 - 17:57]
was real noisy everybody was talking over things and he couldn't be
[17:57 - 18:03]
hearing very well because of the noise there. And so he asked him how he thought
[18:03 - 18:09]
that he meant Thursday that this is Thursday you know.
[18:09 - 18:14]
And so. Now that wasn't right either the guy the way that
[18:14 - 18:19]
he would have to be it would have to be that the guy probably thought that if the guy asked him if he was there's a
[18:19 - 18:24]
thirsty. And so he agreed he said yes I am. And
[18:24 - 18:29]
so they both got off the bus and that's when I got out of the whole thing.
[18:29 - 18:41]
Well the story I was just told was about in reference to
[18:41 - 18:46]
communication. And one obstacle in communication is noise. And this often
[18:46 - 18:51]
distorts a message so it's not campaign handed by the person very well. And this comes into
[18:51 - 18:56]
most communications because it's always around us everywhere
[18:56 - 19:01]
and it's easily comprehended and an example of noise is
[19:01 - 19:06]
to men. Gentleman running on a bus and the first gentleman said
[19:06 - 19:12]
is this Whipple station. But the other one didn't quite get what he said because of
[19:12 - 19:17]
all the noise on the bus about people talking and everything. And he thought he said Thursday is this
[19:17 - 19:20]
Thursday. So the other gentleman said yes
[19:20 - 19:26]
this is Thursday. And the other gentleman thought he said Are you thirsty. So the other one said
[19:26 - 19:29]
yes. And they both got off the bus. And that's what I got.
[19:29 - 19:35]
A lot has happened here honey. The boy obviously was quite confused and he
[19:35 - 19:40]
doesn't think it's funny. He gets all tangled up with Thursday and Thursday and he leaves out the drink
[19:40 - 19:44]
completely. The girl is about equally confused. She adds quite a bit to the
[19:44 - 19:50]
lecture on noise and its harmful effect. Probably because she was confused about the joke.
[19:50 - 19:53]
And incidentally she changes Wimbley to Whipple station.
[19:53 - 19:58]
Well these are small changes like the others that we've noticed. But now I think we can see that these
[19:58 - 20:03]
small changes produce greater distortion and mirror some of their parts right.
[20:03 - 20:08]
What you're saying is that noise doesn't just accumulate right it produces confusion
[20:08 - 20:13]
and out of that confusion a totally new structure may emerge. What happened to the general point about
[20:13 - 20:18]
noise is a good example. In the original the emphasis was on how to combat noise.
[20:18 - 20:23]
At this point the emphasis is on defining what noise is. Our subject in this
[20:23 - 20:28]
experiment college communications students made a wholly new reconstruction of the
[20:28 - 20:30]
point based on their knowledge of the topic.
[20:30 - 20:35]
Well every listener feels that a message must have some kind of structure. If small
[20:35 - 20:40]
changes blur the structure in the listener feels no freer to render it clearer.
[20:40 - 20:44]
But his new structure will be based on his ideas rather than those of the speaker.
[20:44 - 20:50]
Can we generalize on any at this point and say that all distortion is of three kinds.
[20:50 - 20:55]
Either something is left out or something is added or what amounts to a combination of
[20:55 - 20:59]
these two processes. Something is substituted. But before generalizing further
[20:59 - 21:02]
let's listen to the rest of the versions.
[21:02 - 21:06]
Here is the seventh story of the leper so
[21:06 - 21:11]
deals with communication.
[21:11 - 21:16]
It's about noise and how noise and what noise
[21:16 - 21:22]
noise affects us in our communication are communicating. Yet
[21:22 - 21:27]
it's around us all the time and in our subset every every bit of our
[21:27 - 21:33]
communication pattern and we can't get away from
[21:33 - 21:38]
noise. An example of this would be two men are
[21:38 - 21:43]
on a bus and one man says to the other man he says.
[21:43 - 21:49]
Just whippoorwill there's
[21:49 - 21:51]
whippoorwill station.
[21:51 - 21:56]
Me I said thought gee I don't know if he said that he said that he thought he said he said
[21:56 - 22:00]
he thought he said it was just Thursday. Like I said
[22:00 - 22:06]
yes this is the reasoning and the first man said Just whippoorwill station
[22:06 - 22:11]
that he said Are you thirsty. And he says no I'm not there is
[22:11 - 22:11]
thirsty.
[22:11 - 22:18]
That's all I noticed a couple things in this
[22:18 - 22:23]
version I noticed first that the telling of the message takes more time.
[22:23 - 22:28]
And here of course too is where a whippoorwill station comes in. But let's listen to the
[22:28 - 22:30]
last two versions.
[22:30 - 22:36]
We out this episode has to do with communication and. And no I think he has to
[22:36 - 22:42]
do with communication. And.
[22:42 - 22:47]
It's also how noise affects us every day and how how it
[22:47 - 22:53]
makes things different. An example of this would be about two men who are on a on a bath
[22:53 - 22:59]
and one man is the other one. If they were at a station named whippoorwill
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and the first man he thought that he had said
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it is a Thursday and he said yes. If there is they are
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in the second man thought the first man with thinking about you know.
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Are you thirsty. Anything. No I'm not thirsty. I saw.
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This story has to do with communications communication and how noise
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affects communication. There's a story about two men riding on a bus.
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The first man as the second man if this station was a
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whippoorwill.
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The second man thought the first man and said Is this Thursday.
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And the first man thought the second man and said to him
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Are you thirsty.
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Now we can see. Hearing this the second time that the last speaker when faced with an
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extremely tangled mass of details has made a deliberate attempt to organize the message
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he is subjected to some severe logic and has manufactured a clear and rigid
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pattern. But we must say a pointless one.
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Yes he collapsed the general statement into a logical phrase showing that
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communication and noise are connected somehow. But of course the story as he told it doesn't really have a story.
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Yes well on the basis of the many experiments we've done of this kind any would you be able to
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predict what would happen to this message going through say nine more speakers and listeners.
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Well eventually I think the message would be reduced to one. Remember a whole sentence or
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maybe something like this. A man on a noisy bus was thirsty and he asked another
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man if he heard a whippoorwill. And you know John our experiments have proved to us that
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there is always going to be distortion but not what can be done about it.
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Well first of all you mentioned that three ways of combating it in that story
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make the message louder clearer and more often. In other words the speaker should
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provide a wide margin of redundancy. But of course if we're not just talking about a
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laboratory experiment we should say that in real life situations people make use of feedback
[25:14 - 25:19]
from one another to correct errors. But I suppose that one of the most important remedies is for both
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the speaker and the listener to feel a responsibility to each other not to the mere words of
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the message.
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If they're truly in communication with each other then they will be engaged in a creative process
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in effective communication then you're saying that the speaker plays the role of the
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listener and the listener in the role of the speaker or to put it simply they try to make
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allowances for human error rather. If we try to eliminate human error
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they're bound to fail. And I'm afraid this is what our students probably trying to do.
[25:49 - 25:54]
Well in contrast Dani I've noticed that successful writers editors
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speakers teachers those people whose livelihood depends upon clear communication have learned
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this lesson. One of the most striking recent examples is Colonel John Glenn when he
[26:03 - 26:08]
described his first sensations in space his audience had had no experiences in common
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with him.
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Well I like to have our audience here an excerpt from his first press conference to show how he
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naturally assumes that accurate communication is difficult.
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How he accepts the responsibility and strives to avoid distortion
[26:23 - 26:28]
in this passage he's trying to convey his sensations of speed in our middle flight
[26:28 - 26:37]
and the flight about what the invasion of the speed of Christ is relative if you're in
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a complete Again nothing to refer to you can be going almost any speed and you wouldn't
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have any sensation of it.
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I think the nearest I can come to it is most of you have flown on
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jet airliners are flown in jet airplanes at 30000 feet or
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so and I think the feeling of speed about the same as flying an
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airliner such as that and looking down at maybe
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at height the 10000 feet below you know if you're at 30 I think the
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speed with which the ground goes out the money you have
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from orbital altitude would be pretty close to that same speed.
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It's difficult to describe this when you have nothing related to what I think
[27:26 - 27:27]
about it.
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Well this is a fitting climax for a discussion of noise and distortion as
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obstacles in the course of communication but even obstacles serve a purpose and we
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should say before we close that if there were no noise or distortion in human
[27:47 - 27:52]
communication it would be a dull and static world we live in a world
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without novelty or creative progress. The changes in perception caused by
[27:56 - 28:01]
noise are sometimes after all for the better. The legend of Robin Hood
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and the tales of King Arthur for example are undoubtedly distortions of some ordinary
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and much less appealing material.
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And these are not unique. I suppose the joke about the man on the bus is a distortion of some
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prosaic incident shaped by many hands in terms of the satisfying form.
[28:19 - 28:24]
We could probably find that the process of distortion has created or shaped many great human
[28:24 - 28:28]
achievements from recipes for crepe suzette to say Gothic
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architecture. Maybe the best example of all is language. The English language
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itself has reached its present form because of the countless tiny additions
[28:38 - 28:43]
subtractions and substitutions made by purposeful and fallible human
[28:43 - 28:45]
beings.
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You have been listening to where minds meet a discussion of human communication by
[28:49 - 28:54]
Professor John Prine and Arnold Nelson where minds meet is produced
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and recorded by W-M UK. I'm direct grant from the National Association of
[28:59 - 29:03]
educational broadcasters. This is the end of E.B. Radio
[29:03 - 29:04]
Network.
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