Question

We speak at a rate of about 150 words per minute, but we can hear at a rate of about 1,000 words per minute. Using online research, briefly summarize what we traditionally do with this extra time and explain how this presents a challenge to effective communication.

Answer 1

This is the sample answer from edmentum

During a conversation, when people talk to us, most of us think of other things in our mind. This may happen because we can listen a lot faster than the speaker is speaking. As a result, we do not pay attention to what is being said. This lack of attention is impolite and can also result in misunderstandings. We are often so caught up with our own thoughts that we fail to notice the body language of the speaker, which provides hints about emotions, feelings, and stress levels. We often join a conversation with presumptions about the other person or the subject matter to be discussed. So, we form biased opinions in our minds. During a conversation, we tend to interrupt a lot and complete the other person’s thoughts. We also engage in multitasking and selective hearing. We listen only to what we want to hear. So we don’t get the complete picture and jump to wrong conclusions.

Answer 2

We speak at a rate of about 150 words per minute, but we can hear at a rate of about 1,000 words per minute. After doing some online research I found an article in DWM™ Magazine by Dave Molenda about this.

He briefly summarizes what we traditionally do with this extra time. First, because our minds wander while listening.We have a tendency to think about other things that are more interesting or more important to us. Second, our eyes wander. We start start to look at other things for stimulation and lose concentration. This presents a challenge to effective communication because if we were to give full attention to the person who is talking to us we would profit from a much faster more and efficient communication as our brains would be able to process the total amount of words heard.