Listening to another person while talking on the mobile is not a dish of taste for anyone. The situation is especially irritating if that person, instead of conversing normally, starts yelling on the phone. Some consider it a lack of education; others, rude, especially if it is a companion. The point is that, although the tone of voice is normal and it is not an argument, the situation is always annoying.
A group of researchers from Cornell University, in New York, have found the key. Whether we are in the office, on the bus, in a car or in the cafeteria, being silent witnesses to a conversation on the mobile creates frustration. As much as we try not to put our ear, we cannot help listening. The reason, according to these researchers, is that we have less control when it comes to changing our focus of attention when we are witnessing the middle of a conversation (half-conversation) than when it is a dialogue.
This "half-conversation" is much more distracting and it is much more difficult to get rid of it, point out these researchers from Cornell University; that explains why people become so irritable in those situations. When we listen to a complete dialogue between two people, we tend to anticipate what the other party is going to respond to. However, in a half-conversation, when we only hear one of the two parties, our brain must be used thoroughly to try to guess what is coming next. That uncertainty captures our attention.
The study has just been published in the scientific journal Psychological Science , and has been conducted by a team of psychologists, led by Lauren Emberson and Michael Goldstein. The researchers had the participation of 41 volunteers who had to carry out various tasks that required concentration. While the subjects worked, some were treated with prerecorded audios of conversational dialogues, and others with half-conversations. The results showed that the group that was exposed to only half of the conversation performed much worse on the tasks assigned to it than the other group.
Via: Reuters
Photos: Ed Yourdon
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