Thoughts on oral and aural communication…

This year, I was asked by the Continuing Legal Education Director at Ole Miss to develop a 6 hour seminar for mediators — the motivating factor being that the Mississippi Supreme Court has established a list of approved “civil mediators” who have to obtain a certain level of proficiency and, recently, the Court has determined that these mediators — to maintain proficiency — must earn at least 6 hours of CLE that is specifically “mediation oriented”.  So, this spring I developed the curriculum, did some research, prepared handouts and, finally, did this seminar twice — the first 2 Fridays in June.  One of the issues I talked about included our predispositions to “receive” oral communication.  This particular portion of the presentation was met with some “acclaim” and has brought the request that I develop an entire 6 hour CLE seminar on aural, oral and written communication.

One of the “aha” moments in this part of the seminar was when  I mentioned a research project just completed in 2008 at UCLA, studying responses to voice from a pool of over 10,000 people,  which determined that 84% of the message received by the listener is conveyed by the “music” in our voices – vocal quality – pitch, tone, inflection.  It seems that the human brain has sensitive “credibility detectors” which are “pre-verbal” – activated by the tone of voice and body-language, not words.  These credibility detectors give us, as listeners, immediate – imperceptibly immediate – information about a speaker’s sincerity, integrity and emotional state, as well as the speaker’s perception of us (as individuals to whom the speaker is directing his spoken word).

Now, to me, that’s scary – the imperceptibly immediate, pre-verbal acts of our brain that form FOR US – we don’t form them based on reason or information – our brain forms FOR US, our perception about the speaker’s sincerity, integrity and emotional state.  Our brain forms FOR US our perception of how the speaker feels about us.  Is he conveying a put-down?  Is he judging me?  Does he feel good about me?

Inflection, folks, is incredibly important – not only in mediation but in all aspects of communication.  In making oral arguments before a judge or before your spouse.  In conveying your opinions to your children or your colleagues.  So just keep that in mind.

It’s certainly food for thought, isn’t it?

Do you have one of those voices that is immediately recognizable?  I do.  I’ve been told all my life that the tenor, intonation, “breath-factor” and pitch of my voice make it particularly recognizable and memorable.  I wonder if it’s “music” or “screech” that it conveys?  I hope music!