Perspectives in Communication

Perspectives in Communication

Try to understand the different levels of perceptions of a situation and an issue. Be open, flexible and transparent. A communication perspective focuses on the way in which our shared meanings and practices are constituted through language and symbol, the construction of messages, and their dissemination through media, organizations, and society.

We all come to each communication exchange with our own ‘filter’ through which we see the world, the person we are communicating with, and the situation or topic we are communicating about. These filters mean that we don’t always start with the same perspective as the person we are communicating with.

Our individual perceptions are the ‘filter’ through which we communicate with others.

1.7.1 Visual perception

Visual perception is the ability to see and interpret (analyze and give meaning to) the visual information that surrounds us.

The process of "taking in" one's environment is referred to as perception.  If perception is inaccurate, incorrect or altered in any way - problems with reading, spelling, handwriting, math and comprehension occur.  Visual perceptual skills involve the ability to organize and interpret the information that is seen and give it meaning.  The importance of visual perceptual skills in academic success is agreed upon by many, acknowledging reading would not be possible without adequate visual perception.

Visual perceptual processing impacts the ability to learn.

Without accurate visual perceptual processing, a student would have difficulty learning to read, give or follow directions, copy from the whiteboard, visualize objects or past experiences, have good eye-hand coordination, integrate visual information with other senses to do things like ride a bike, play catch, shoot baskets when playing basketball, or hear a sound and visualize where it is coming from (like the siren on a police car).

Visual perceptual skills include several key component areas:

• Visual Discrimination:  The ability to notice detail differences such as shape, size, color, or other dimensional aspects.
• Form Constancy (Form Discrimination):  The ability to perceive positional aspect differences and recognize objects when they are in a different orientation or format.
• Figure Ground (Foreground-Background Differentiation): The ability to focus on a selected target and screen out or ignore irrelevant images.
• Spatial Relations:  The ability to recognize the positioning of objects in space.
• Visual Closure:  The ability to recognize an object, letter or number without seeing all of the object.
• Visual Sequencing:  The ability to see objects in a particular sequential order.
• Visual Memory:  The ability to remember forms (letters) and sequences of forms (words) and recognize them quickly when seen again.

Forms of Visual Communication

There are many forms of visual communication. To choose a proper form of visual communication, you need to think about the background of your audience, your communication purpose, the nature of your statistics and so on. See some of the commonly used visual communication presentation forms.

Visual Communication Form - Public Signs

A sign is a mark or shape that always has a particular meaning, for example, in mathematics or music. We can see many public signs that play an important role in our daily life. Their advantages lie in the cross-cultural communication which is not limited by language barrier. See some examples below.

 

Visual Communication Form - Visual Symbols

Visual symbols are used from long ago. For example, pigeon, heart and gold are used as the symbol of peace, love and wealth respectively.

Visual Communication - Chart and Graph

This form is very perfect for data analysis. It includes many types such as bar, column, pie and doughnut chart. To analyze your figures more effectively, you can combine them together. See an example below.

Visual Communication - Table

Table is suitable for classifying numbers. It is one primary form to structure and communicate quantitative data.

Visual Communication - Map

A map can represent a place vividly. Paper maps are portable and can be carried around easily. Online maps are gaining increasing popularity. For example Google Map, a reliable mapping service, provides useful location information. Check out some amazing slides made with vector maps provided by Edraw.

Visual Communication - Other Diagrams

Listed above are only a small part of visual communication forms. Other forms include flow chart, org chart, mind map and so on. Please refer to page: diagram types for more information.

1.7.2 Language

The different perspectives we experience can be with language as well. How many times have you received an email that seemed to have a certain ‘tone to it,’ and that perception of tone colored the way that you might have responded?

The same words can have very different meanings depending on how we interpret them.

Here’s another example. What is the meaning of the following sentence?

A woman without her man is nothing.

Sounds pretty bad at first glance, doesn’t it? Look again. If you add punctuation or change the word emphasis, how does the meaning change?

A woman, without her man, is nothing.

The words were the same in both cases. But the meaning has now changed completely. So although we think our meaning may be clear when we use specific words in a certain order, we can’t always be certain that the other person will read or hear them in that way.

1.7.3 Other Factors Affecting Our Perspective

There are a multitude of other factors that can affect our perspective, thereby affecting how we communicate with another person. Some of these factors come from our past experiences, our prejudices, our feelings, and our environment. Some of these will be discussed in greater detail in later chapters.

1.7.4 Past Experiences

Imagine that you are in a meeting where you will be discussing changes in your personnel policies at work. What will you be bringing to that conversation? You might have examples of other company’s personnel policies. You might have examples from your own time in the company that demonstrate why you feel that certain changes might need to be made. Or you might come to the table empty-handed, with just a pad of paper and a pen in order to take notes.

What influences you to do any of these things? Your past experience. You would bring outside information because you have learned in the past that comparing situations can be helpful in decision making. You bring examples of your own experience because you have learned in the past that examples can be powerful ways to make your case. Or you come to the table empty-handed because in the past you have felt that your input wasn’t valued or you have no past experience in this topic and so you are a ‘clean slate’ information wise.

In every one of these situations, your communication is being affected by your past experience. You enter a situation, a meeting, or a conversation, with certain expectations of what will happen in that scenario, and you behave accordingly.

Of course, sometimes you want your past experience to influence your future communications. For example, when your team responded positively to the sales tactics you put in place, those same or similar tactics can certainly be successful again.

When our negative past experiences stifle our communication or alter our full potential for communicating that we need to be aware. Further examples of how your past experience could influence your communication are given in Figure 4. Note that not all of them are negative – our past experiences can reaffirm our communication as well.

1.7.5 Prejudices

We all have prejudices. They occur when we take our past experiences with a person and assume that the same type of experience will happen with all people who are similar to the first. Prejudices are partly due to culture and partly due to personal preference or experience. Not all prejudices involve a negative characteristic either; for example, you could consider all of one group to be smart.

The problem with prejudices is when they start to influence how or to whom we communicate. To get an idea of how this could be happening in your workplace, consider how you might complete the phrases below. If you can’t think of a way to complete it from your own experience, complete each phrase with a stereotype that you might have heard in the past:

• Women in the workplace are….

• Young people in the workplace are…

• Seniors in the workplace are…

• Working mothers in the workplace are…

• Supervisors at work are…

• The lowest job level workers are…

• Disabled people in the workplace are…

Prejudices occur when we take an isolated experience with one ‘type’ of person and then act as if all encounters in the future with people of the same ‘type’ or with the same characteristics will result in the same experience

When we categorize people like this, we eliminate their individuality. If you are communicating to a person through a perceived prejudice or stereotype, at the very least you are greatly limiting the chances of your communication being successful or producing the desired result. At the most, you are alienating or insulting someone with whom you are trying to build a working relationship.

Your goal should be to see each person as an individual that is separate from any preconceived notions you might have about them. It takes practice, but wouldn’t you like to be seen and communicated with as an individual and not as a sum of different labels that can be placed on you?

1.7.6 Feelings

For this area of influence, there are actually two ways in which your feelings can influence your communication with another person. The first simply refers to the way that you feel on a given day; if you feel well, you’ll communicate in one way and if you feel ill you’ll communicate in another. Since your well being fluctuates, it makes sense that the way you communicate will change somewhat with how well you are feeling. If you find yourself experiencing difficulty in communicating due to an illness or other physical stressor, recognizing and acknowledging it, when appropriate, can be very helpful when others might interpret the change in your communication as having something to do with them.

The second aspect related to feelings refers to how you feel about a specific person. When you genuinely like someone, the way you communicate is going to show it. Unfortunately, the same can be said for when you don’t like someone. However, as you continue learning about effective communication skills in the following chapters, you will find some tools to help you be as effective as possible in communicating, even when it’s with someone that you dislike.

1.7.7 Environment

The last area of influence on your communication is your environment. All of us communicate differently in different environments. This is simple enough to observe in everyday life. Do you speak to your colleagues the same way that you do to your friends? Do you talk to strangers with more or less formality than people you know well? Do you talk to your subordinates the same way when your own boss is there as you do when she is not there? As you go through your workday, notice how where you are, what is going on and who else is present may be impacting the way that you communicate.

Recognizing how the environment might be affecting others you communicate with is a skill that can come in handy for you, particularly when you perceive that the environment is having a negative impact on your ability to communicate effectively with someone. This skill will help you to perceive why someone might be communicating in the way that they are. It will also give you a factor that you can alter in order to make the person more comfortable or to establish a level of formality that you feel is important in a particular situation.