fnord

On Communication Styles and the OSI Model

All real-world communication channels are noisy.

This is hardly ground-breaking truth, and seems obvious to pretty much anyone who ever studied or used any kind of communication channel. Yet I find that this principle can be applied to interpersonal communications and perhaps provide some insight.

First, let's define our terms. For our purposes, “Communication” means conveying and idea such that it leaves one mind and reaches another mind intact. “Channel” is a physical medium through which communication has to take place, pending the discovery of telepathy. “Noise” is any property of the channel that hinders communication.

Now, a very useful model when discussing communications is the OSI Model. Without getting into details, in the OSI model communication takes place across layers, where each layer provides a higher level of abstraction. Going by this model, “noise” can take place at different levels – a noisy environment can make it difficult for another person to hear what we are saying (physical level), having to focus on multiple things can make it difficult for them to understand (higher level), etc...

Looking at human communications through this lens can help us make some other useful analogies. For example, one can think of Active Listening as a TCP-like mode of communication where, every few “packets” (i.e. sentences) the listener acknowledges the receipt of the information, and ensures they understood it correctly (by repeating a sort of “checksum” of the data). In fact, the listener verifies that successful communication did in fact take place.

But the most interesting thing, for me, is to consider what constitutes “noise” at the highest abstraction level of interpersonal communication. At this abstraction level, we discuss direct communication of ideas from one mind to another and ignore the whole vibrating-flabby-pieces-of-flesh-moving-air-towards-a-small-membrane thing (or more likely digits-typing-on-keyboard-generating-electrical-pulses-that-cause-pixels-to-light-up).

I submit that at the top-most abstraction level, “noise” is the listener's experience, prejudice, bias and ideas about language usage[1]. In short, who the listener is.

Our experiences and biases, our ideas about the day to day usage of words, all of these (and more!) will have an impact on how we interpret ideas that are conveyed to us. This, I believe, is obvious to anyone who has been a language-using human being for more than about five minutes.

In my experience the way people deal with the noisiness of this communication channel falls into one of two categories:

Static – have a preconceived estimate of the noise level and type and communicate based on this estimate without validating it. In other words, have a preconceived idea of what experience, bias and prejudice is “acceptable” (typically based on the speaker's own experience, bias and prejudice) and assume (or even insist) that the listener falls in this “acceptable” range. Dynamic – start out by assuming some noise level and type and correct based on feedback received. Usually the initial estimate of the noise is either “highest possible” or, like above some value based on the speaker's definition of “acceptable” noise level.

It is easy to see why the first category is so attractive – it takes much less effort and places the burden on somebody else. There is an additional, perhaps more subtle, benefit too – it works pretty well as long as one only communicates with people who have similar experiences, biases and prejudices. This means that for most people, this mode of communication is not only easier but that in their experience it has always worked (until the first time it doesn't).

The second category of “error correction” is more difficult to implement. In fact, it requires an additional communication channel – a sort of “meta-channel” in which communication takes place about the communication itself. It also requires constant translation and adjustment of one's ideas in order to adapt to one's current (and constantly evolving) understanding of how best to communicate them. This is difficult, especially if one has never used this style of communication before.

However, there is, in my eyes, a very compelling reason to adopt the second mode of “error correction”. The reason is that it's the only way in which communication (as defined above) can intentionally take place. If I say my goal is to communicate (rather than “to talk”) then it is my responsibility to do everything in my power to make sure communication does in fact take place – that is, that my ideas are conveyed clearly into the minds of the specific people I am communicating with. And that means taking into account their experiences and biases – in short, I have to consider who they are.

The people who insist on using dictionary definitions, on being judged by their intentions rather than by how their words are received, who call out their listeners for being “too sensitive” – these people either don't want to communicate, or they forget (or choose to ignore) that they are communicating over a noisy channel. The noise is other people.

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[1] “noise” is a problematic term because it carries negative connotation of something undesirable that should be gotten rid of. This is of course not the case for people's experiences and identities. The alternative of “filters” is also problematic because in suggests something artificial that can be removed at will. I am happy to receive suggestions for better terms.