You're Not Listening

by Kate Murphy

  nature or nurture Tara Chaplin and Amelia Aldao, “Gender Differences in Emotion Expression in Children: A Meta-Analytic Review,” Psychological Bulletin 139, no. 4 (2013): 735–765, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030737.

  even infant girls Megan R. Gunnar and Margaret Donahue, “Sex Differences in Social Responsiveness Between Six Months and Twelve Months,” Child Development (1980): 262–265, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1129619; Gerianne M. Alexander and Teresa Wilcox, “Sex Differences in Early Infancy,” Child Development Perspectives 6, no. 4 (2012): 400–406, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-8606.2012.00247.x; Agneta Fischer, Gender and Emotion: Social Psychological Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

  form of the male brain Simon Baron-Cohen, Sarah Cassidy, Bonnie Auyeung, Carrie Allison, Maryam Achoukhi, Sarah Robertson, Alexa Pohl, et al., “Attenuation of Typical Sex Differences in 800 Adults with Autism vs. 3,900 Controls,” PLOS One 9, no. 7 (2014), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102251.

  perceived as significantly louder Mélanie Aeschlimann, Jean-François Knebel, Micah M. Murray, and Stephanie Clarke, “Emotional Pre-Eminence of Human Vocalizations,” Brain Topography 20, no. 4 (2008): 239–248, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-008-0051-8.

  five times more upset Andrew G. Miner, Theresa M. Glomb, and Charles Hulin, “Experience Sampling Mood and Its Correlates at Work,” Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 78 (2005): 171–193, https://doi.org/10.1348/096317905X40105.

  for a relationship to succeed Kyle Benson, “The Magic Relationship Ratio, According to Science,” Gottman Institute, October 4, 2017, https://www.gottman.com/blog/the-magic-relationship-ratio-according-science/.

  another kind of shift response Kelsey Crowe and Emily McDowell, There Is No Good Card for This: What To Do and Say When Life is Scary, Awful and Unfair to People You Love (New York: HarperOne, 2017).

  Quaker practice of forming “clearness committees” “Clearness Committees—What They Are and What They Do,” Friends General Conference, https://www.fgcquaker.org/resources/clearness-committees-what-they-are-and-what-they-do.

  when mothers just listened Bethany Rittle-Johnson, Megan Saylor, and Kathryn E. Swygert, “Learning from Explaining: Does It Matter If Mom Is Listening?,” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 100, no. 3 (2008): 215–224, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2007.10.002.

  more detailed solutions Robert M. Krauss, “The Role of the Listener: Addressee Influences on Message Formulation,” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 6, no. 2 (1987): 81–98, https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X8700600201; Kate Loewenthal, “The Development of Codes in Public and Private Language,” Psychonomic Science 8, no. 10 (1967): 449–450, https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03332285.

  Great Conversations “About Us,” Great Conversations, https://www.greatconversations.com/about-us/.

  intense feelings of closeness Arthur Aron, Edward Melinat, Elaine Aron, Robert Vallone, and Reness Bator, “The Experiental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23, no. 4 (1997): 363–377, https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167297234003.

  resurfaced in a 2015 essay Mandy Len Catron, “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This,” New York Times, January 9, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/fashion/modern-love-to-fall-in-love-with-anyone-do-this.html.

  generative soul of their work Michael Lewis, “How Tom Wolfe Became … Tom Wolfe,” Vanity Fair, October 8, 2015, https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/10/how-tom-wolfe-became-tom-wolfe; John McPhee, “Omission,” New Yorker, September 7, 2015, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/14/omission; Neely Tucker, “How Richard Price Does It: New York Dialogue, Only Better,” Washington Post, March 1, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-richard-price-does-it-new-york-dialogue-only-better/2015/03/01/11ad2f04-bdec-11e4-bdfa-b8e8f594e6ee_story.html.

  telling you who they are Elizabeth Strout, The Burgess Boys (New York: Random House, 2014), 160.

  people aren’t listening that much “Elizabeth Strout, ‘Anything Is Possible,’” YouTube video, 55:04, posted by Politics and Prose, May 9, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_gDv12z4nQ&feature=youtu.be.

  13: HAMMERS, ANVILS, AND STIRRUPS: TURNING SOUND WAVES INTO BRAIN WAVES

  can hear approaching clouds “Elephants Can Hear the Sound of Approaching Clouds,” BBC, December 11, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20151115-elephants-can-hear-the-sound-of-approaching-clouds; Michael Garstang, David R. Fitzjarrald, Kurt Fristrup, and Conrad Brain, “The Daily Cycle of Low-Frequency Elephant Calls and Near-Surface Atmospheric Conditions,” Earth Interactions 9, no. 14 (2005): 1–21, https://doi.org/10.1175/EI147.1.

  reflexive reaction to it Lizabeth M. Romanski and Joseph E. LeDoux, “Bilateral Destruction of Neocortical and Perirhinal Projection Targets of the Acoustic Thalamus Does Not Disrupt Auditory Fear Conditioning,” Neuroscience Letters 142, no. 2 (1992): 228–232, https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3940(92)90379-L; “The Auditory Cortex” in Neuroscience 2nd Edition, eds. D. Purves, G. J. Augustine, D. Fitzpatrick, et al (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 2001), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10900/; Gary L. Wenk, The Brain: What Everyone Needs To Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 143–144.

  German neurologist Carl Wernicke Judy Duchan, “Carl Wernicke 1848–1905,” History of Speech-Language Pathology, University at Buffalo–SUNY, http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~duchan/new_history/hist19c/subpages/wernicke.html; Gertrude H. Eggert, Wernicke’s Works on Aphasia: A Sourcebook and Review: Early Sources in Aphasia and Related Disorders, vol. 1 (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1977).

  specialized clusters of neurons C. Tang, L. S. Hamilton, and E. F. Chang, “Intonational Speech Prosody Encoding in the Human Auditory Cortex,” Science 357, no. 6353 (2017): 797–801, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam8577.

  musicians, whose art depends Dana Strait, Nina Kraus, Erika Skoe, and Richard Ashley, “Musical Experience and Neural Efficiency-Effects of Training on Subcortical Processing of Vocal Expressions of Emotion,” European Journal of Neuroscience 29 (2009): 661–668, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2009.06617.x.

  musicians unfamiliar with Mandarin Chao-Yang Lee and Tsun-Hui Hung, “Identification of Mandarin Tones by English-Speaking Musicians and Nonmusicians,” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 124, no. 3235 (2008), https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2990713; Céline Marie, Franco Delogu, Giulia Lampis, Marta Olivetti Belardinelli, and Mireille Besson, “Influence of Musical Expertise on Segmental and Tonal Processing in Mandarin Chinese,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23, no. 10 (2011): 2701–2715.

  another intriguing fMRI experiment Yaara Yeshurun, Stephen Swanson, Erez Simony, Janice Chen, Christina Lazaridi, Christopher J. Honey, and Uri Hasson, “Same Story, Different Story: The Neural Representation of Interpretive Frameworks,” Psychological Science 28, no. 3 (2017): 307–319, https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797616682029.

  J. D. Salinger short story J. D. Salinger, “Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes,” New Yorker, July 6, 1951, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1951/07/14/pretty-mouth-and-green-my-eyes.

  right-ear advantage M. P. Bryden, “An Overview of the Dichotic Listening Procedure and Its Relation to Cerebral Organization,” in Handbook of Dichotic Listening: Theory, Methods and Research, ed. K. Hugdahl (Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 1988), 1–43; Gina Geffen, “The Development of the Right Ear Advantage in Dichotic Listening with Focused Attention,” Cortex 14, no. 2 (1978): 169–177, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-9452(78)80042-2.

  emotional aspects of speech Abdulrahman D. Alzahrani and Marwan A. Almuhammadi, “Left Ear Advantages in Detecting Emotional Tones Using Dichotic Listening Task in an Arabic Sample,” Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition 18, no. 6 (2013): 730–747, https://doi.org/10.1080/1357650X.2012.762373; Teow-Chong Sim and Carolyn Martinez, “Emotion words are remembered better in the left ear.” Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition 10, no. 2 (2005): 149—159, https://doi.org/1
0.1080/13576500342000365.

  appreciation of music Diana Deutsch, “Dichotic Listening to Melodic Patterns and Its Relationship to Hemispheric Specialization of Function,” Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal 3, no. 2 (1985): 127–154, https://doi.org/10.2307/40285329.

  wiring may be reversed Anne L. Foundas, David M. Corey, Megan M. Hurley, and Kenneth M. Heilman, “Verbal Dichotic Listening in Right and Left-Handed Adults: Laterality Effects of Directed Attention,” Cortex 42, no. 1 (2006): 79–86, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-9452(08)70324-1; Kenneth Hugdahl and Britta Andersson, “Dichotic Listening in 126 Left-Handed Children: Ear Advantages, Familial Sinistrality and Sex Differences,” Neuropsychologia 27, no. 7 (1989): 999–1006, https://doi.org/10.1016/0028-3932(89)90075-4.

  left or right side of headphones James Jerger, “The Remarkable History of Right-Ear Advantage,” Hearing Review 25, no. 1 (2018): 12–16, http://www.hearingreview.com/2017/12/remarkable-history-right-ear-advantage/.

  ingenious study by Italian researchers Daniele Marzoli and Luca Tommasi, “Side Biases in Humans (Homo sapiens): Three Ecological Studies on Hemispheric Asymmetries,” Naturwissenschaften 96, no. 9 (2009): 1099–1106, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-009-0571-4.

  earliest vertebrates had inner ears Seth Horowitz, The Universal Sense: How Hearing Shapes the Mind (New York: Bloomsbury, 2012), 14.

  response to pressure John Carey and Nivee Arnin, “Evolutionary Changes in the Cochlea and Labyrinth: Solving the Problem of Sound Transmission to the Balance Organs of the Inner Ear,” Anatomical Record Part A: Discoveries in Molecular, Cellular, and Evolutionary Biology 288A, no. 4 (2006), https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.a.20306.

  up to twenty decibels Horowitz, Universal Sense, 75.

  feels so darn good Cassie Shortsleeve, “Why It Feels So Damn Good to Stick a Q-tip in Your Ear,” Men’s Health, March 7, 2017, https://www.menshealth.com/health/a19542654/why-sticking-qtips-in-ear-feels-so-good/.

  don’t call it “eargasm” for nothing “Having an EARGASM by Cleaning Your Ears with a Q-tip,” Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/Having-an-EARGASM-by-cleaning-your-ears-with-a-Q-tip-270935093839/.

  Protruding from each hair cell Chonnettia Jones and Ping Chen, “Chapter Eight Primary Cilia in Planar Cell Polarity Regulation of the Inner Ear,” Current Topics in Developmental Biology 85 (2008): 197–224, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0070-2153(08)00808-9; William Yost, Fundamentals of Hearing, 5th ed. (Burlington, MA: Academic Press, 2001): 73–95.

  damage to those hair cells Trevor Mcgill and Harold F. Schuknecht, “Human Cochlear Changes in Noise Induced Hearing Loss,” Laryngoscope 86, no. 9 (1976), https://doi.org/10.1288/00005537-197609000-00001.

  everyday activities can damage “Decibel Exposure Time Guidelines,” Dangerous Decibels, http://dangerousdecibels.org/education/information-center/decibel-exposure-time-guidelines/; “Occupational Noise Exposure Revised Criteria 1998,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/98-126/pdfs/98-126.pdf?id=10.26616/NIOSHPUB98126.

  1.1 billion young people “1.1 Billion People at Risk of Hearing Loss,” February 27, 2015, World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2015/ear-care/en/.

  48 million people “One in Five Americans Has Hearing Loss: New nationally representative estimate shows wide scope of problem,” Johns Hopkins Medicine News and Publications, November 14, 2011, https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/one_in_five_americans_has_hearing_loss; “Statistics and Facts About Hearing Loss,” Center for Hearing and Communication, http://chchearing.org/facts-about-hearing-loss/.

  sixty-five percent are under age sixty-five “12 Myths About Hearing Loss,” AARP, https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2016/hearing-loss-myths-information-kb.html.

  third most common chronic physical condition “Worker Hearing Loss,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/features/worker-hearing-loss/index.html.

  susceptability to auditory hallucinations A. R. Powers, C. Mathys, and P. R. Corlett, “Pavlovian Conditioning–Induced Hallucinations Result from Overweighting of Perceptual Priors,” Science 357, no. 6351 (2017): 596–600, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan3458; C. E. Seashore, “Measurements of Illusions and Hallucinations in Normal Life,” Studies from the Yale Psychological Laboratory 3 (1895); D. G. Ellson, “Hallucinations Produced by Sensory Conditioning,” Journal of Experimental Psychology 28, no. 1 (1941): 1–20, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0054167; H. V. Helmholz, Treatise on Physiological Optics, vol. 3 (New York: Dover, l962).

  notebook of his “mishearings” Oliver Sacks, “Mishearings,” New York Times, June 5, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/oliver-sacks-mishearings.html.

  Sylvia Wright coined the term Sylvia Wright, “The Death of Lady Mondegreen,” in Get Away from Me with Those Christmas Gifts (New York: McGraw Hill, 1957).

  McGurk effect Kaisa Tippana, “What Is the McGurk Effect?,” Frontiers in Psychology 5, no. 725 (2014), https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00725. See also: “Try this bizarre audio illusion!” YouTube video, 3:25, posted by BBC, November 10, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0.

  poor emotional and social outcomes Andrea Ciorba, Chiara Bianchini, Stefano Pelucchi, and Antonio Pastore, “The Impact of Hearing Loss on the Quality of Life of Elderly Adults,” Clinical Interventions in Aging 7 (2017): 159–163, https://doi.org/10.2147/CIA.S26059; “Hearing Loss Impact,” Cleveland Clinic, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17052-hearing-loss-impact; Mary Kaland and Kate Salvatore, “The Psychology of Hearing Loss,” ASHA Leader, March 1, 2002, https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.FTR1.07052002.4.

  60 percent of maximum volume “Make Listening Safe,” World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/pbd/deafness/activities/1706_PBD_leaftlet_A4_English_lowres_for_web170215.pdf.

  Earwax buildup Daniel F. McCarter, Angela Courtney, Susan M Pollart, “Cerumen Impaction,” American Family Physician 75, no. 10 (2007): 1523–1528.

  visual as aural enterprise Ruth Campbell, “The Processing of Audio-Visual Speech: Empirical and Neural Bases,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 363, no. 1493 (2008): 1001–1010, https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2007.2155.

  visual and auditory cortices Paul Johns, Clinical Neuroscience (London: Churchill Livingston, 2014), 27–47.

  20 percent of your comprehension Horst M. Müller, “Neurobiological Aspects of Meaning Constitution During Language Processing,” in Situated Communication, eds. Gert Rickheit and Ipke Wachsmuth (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006), 243; David Owen, “High-Tech Hope for the Hard of Hearing,” New Yorker, March 27, 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/03/high-tech-hope-for-the-hard-of-hearing.

  55 percent of the emotional content Albert Mehrabian, Silent Messages: Implicit Communication of Emotions and Attitudes (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1981), 75–80; Dilip Sundaram and Cynthia Webster, “The Role of Nonverbal Communication in Service Encounters,” Journal of Services Marketing 14, no. 5 (2000): 378–391, https://doi.org/10.1108/08876040010341008; Cynthia Barnum and Natasha Wolniansky, “Taking Cues from Body Language,” Management Review 78, no. 6 (1989): 59–61; Jon E. Grahe and Frank J. Bernieri, “The Importance of Nonverbal Cues in Judging Rapport,” Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 23, no. 4 (1999): 253–269, https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021698725361.

  betrayal oozes out of him John O’Neill, The Domestic Economy of the Soul: Freud’s Five Case Studies (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2011), 67.

  involuntary pre-language Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Love and Hate: A Natural History of Behavior Patterns (Foundations of Human Behavior), 1st ed. (New York: Routledge, 2017); Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

  grammaticalization of facial expressions C. Fabian Benitez-Quiroz, Ronnie B. Wilbur, and Aleix M. Martinez, “The Not Face: A Grammaticalization of Facial Expressions of Emotion,” Cognition 150 (2016
): 77–84, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2016.02.004.

  angry all the time Alice Schermerhorn, “Associations of Child Emotion Recognition with Interparental Conflict and Shy Child Temperament Traits,” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (2018), https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407518762606.

  time looking at screens Kyung-Seu Cho and Jae-Moo Lee, “Influence of Smartphone Addiction Proneness of Young Children on Problematic Behaviors and Emotional Intelligence: Mediating Self-Assessment Effects of Parents Using Smartphones,” Computers in Human Behavior 66 (2017): 303–311, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.09.063; Elisabeth Engelberg and Lennart Sjöberg, “Internet Use, Social Skills, and Adjustment,” Cyberpsychology & Behavior 7, no. 1 (2004): 41–47, https://doi.org/10.1089/109493104322820101.

  device-free outdoor camp Yalda T. Uhls, Minas Michikyan, Jordan Morris, Debra Garcia, Gary W. Small, Eleni Zgourou, and Patricia M. Greenfield, “Five Days at Outdoor Education Camp Without Screens Improves Preteen Skills with Nonverbal Emotion Cues,” Computers in Human Behavior 39 (2014): 387–392, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.05.036.

  superimposed the color signatures Carlos Benitez-Quiroz, Ramprakash Srinivasan, and Aleix M. Martinez, “Facial Color Is an Efficient Mechanism to Visually Transmit Emotion,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115, no. 14 (2018): 3581–3586, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1716084115.

  just 7 percent Mehrabian, Silent Messages, 75–80.

  technological reasons Sascha Segan, “How to Make Your Cell Phone Calls Sound Better,” PC Magazine, April 13, 2018, https://www.pcmag.com/article/360357/how-to-make-your-cell-phone-calls-sound-better.

  14: ADDICTED TO DISTRACTION

  device dependency Jon E. Grant and Samuel R. Chamberlain, “Expanding the Definition of Addiction: DSM-5 vs. ICD-11,” CNS Spectrums 21, no. 4 (2016): 300–303, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1092852916000183.