Physics and Miscommunication - Ramble #1

The movement of sound waves and the subsequent impact on interpersonal dialogue in so-called face-to-face situations...

The problem is rarely do people actually sit face to face anymore - they are too busy doing other things at the same time as someone else is trying to communicate something to them, regardless of the seriousness of the content of that communcation. An example, two people in the kitchen. One (A) is cooking, the other (B) is passing through on their way to the porch. "What do you want for a side dish, B?" A says while still starting at the saucepan. Now let's stop right there. Sound waves travel ahead of a person usually yes? Created by the vibration of air along vocal cords and shaped by the positioning of the palette, the lips, the tongue and expelled forward ... into the sauce pan. B hears what A says, but realyl all this means is that B's eardrums pick up some of the vibrations, the sound waves generated by A and registers therefore that sound was made, and constituted some form of vocal communication. So technically B heard A. Right? Right. But did they? What did they hear? "Woh woh woh woh woh woh woh dish, B?" or some variation.

Ok - so then B stops, turns slightly toward A and says "Huh?" This communication may actually be successful as not only has B turned toward A, but A is waiting expectantly for an answer and therefore may have turned slightly toward B as well. Wow - we have a far better acoustic dynamic now only the content has now dropped off significantly.

And B of course is on a single-minded mission to do whatever - and so instead of really waiting for the repeat, turns back toward the porch, ruining the acoustic dynamics altogether so that when A says once again, "What do you want for a side dish?", B still doesn't get it.

Now we have ruined the dynamics even further as B is now on the porch, separated from A by a brick wall. "Still didn't hear you!" B shouts. A so now we have taken to elevating the volume of this conversation to compensate for the distance and dissonant acoustic angles.

"Side dish! What you want?" A shouts back. And indeed we have now resorted to primitive language structures, basic phrases and elevated volume all around.

"Oh." B stops what they are doing and thinks for a moment, "Sugar snap peas."

"What?!" Now A is the one who hears but does not comprehend.

"Peas!"

"Ah right. Ok."

And on they go their merry ways. Only peas is not the same as sugar snap peas is it? So despite the shouting and compensating for distance, and acoustic interference, there was still miscommunication and plenty of poor communication to go around.

All of which could be easily avoided if people accounted for the effect of gravity in their lives. Slow down. And align your sound waves.