Communication noise refers to influences on effective communication

Communication

Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

 that influence the interpretation of conversation

Conversation

Conversation is a form of interactive, spontaneous communication between two or more people who are following rules of etiquette.Conversation analysis is a branch of sociology which studies the structure and organization of human interaction, with a more specific focus on conversational...

s. While often looked over, communication noise can have a profound impact both on our perception of interactions with others and our analysis of our own communication proficiency.

Forms of communication noise include psychological

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 noise, physical noise, physiological

Physiology

Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...

 and semantic noise. All these forms of noise subtly, yet greatly influence our communication with others and are vitally important to anyone’s skills as a competent communicator.

Psychological noise

Psychological noise results from preconceived notions we bring to conversations, such as racial stereotype

Stereotype

A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...

s, reputations, bias

Bias

Bias is an inclination to present or hold a partial perspective at the expense of alternatives. Bias can come in many forms.-In judgement and decision making:...

es, and assumptions. When we come into a conversation with ideas about what the other person is going to say and why, we can easily become blinded to their original message. Most of the time psychological noise is impossible to free ourselves from, and we must simply strive to recognize that it exists and take those distractions into account when we converse with others.

Physical noise

Physical noise is any external or environmental stimulus

Stimulus (physiology)

In physiology, a stimulus is a detectable change in the internal or external environment. The ability of an organism or organ to respond to external stimuli is called sensitivity....

that distracts us from receiving the intended message sent by a communicator (Rothwell 11). Examples of physical noise include: others talking in the background, background music, a startling noise and acknowledging someone outside of the conversation.

Semantic noise

This is noise caused by the sender. i.e, the encoder. This type of noise occurs when grammar or technical language is used that the receiver (the decoder) cannot understand, or cannot understand clearly.