River: Crosstalk

[mdlbear]

This is the third of a series of three River posts about communication and conversation: the first was "Talking long distance", and the second was "Talking with you" I'm afraid my mindspace has been rather taken up recently with things like New Song Energy and getting ready for ConChord, so these are coming out a lot more slowly than I originally intended. Onward!

The last couple of days, a lot of my time has disappeared into watching old CSI episodes with Colleen (she's borrowing the DVDs from our younger daughter). Colleen can get things done while watching TV. I can't.

If there is anything at all with words anywhere in my auditory or visual environment, I will pay attention to it. If there are more than just one thing involving words, my attention will get split at random. I can't multitask.

In particular, I can't divide my attention between reading, listening, writing, talking, and thinking. And I have to think for a moment before I either write or speak.

The only thing that reliably blocks words coming into my ears is reading; if I'm reading something -- a book or a computer screen -- I will not hear you talking! I can't ignore anything else.

This is a phenomenon that cflute calls "crosstalk". As you can see from the start of the Wikipedia article, it's an accurate description of it:

In electronics, the term crosstalk (XT) refers to any phenomenon by which a signal transmitted on one circuit or channel of a transmission system creates an undesired effect in another circuit or channel.

I only have one channel for processing words. It's used for reading, understanding speech, writing, talking, and thinking. I think mainly in words -- it's called subvocalization.

I believe I've mentioned a couple of times that I have to compose what I'm saying before I say or write it. I subvocalize when I'm doing this, and I also subvocalize when I'm reading, which makes it hard to skim. Basically, if I'm hearing or reading words, I won't be able to hear the internal voice that I use to compose words. Literally, I can't think. I discovered, quite recently, that even talking to myself blocks thinking; I always used to talk to myself when I was out walking. It was always pretty aimless.

I've been writing more songs recently, and I'm pretty sure that this is, at least in part, due to the fact that I've learned to shut up and listen to my muse instead of my own voice. I've also learned to turn the radio off in the car: I can think in the car because driving in familiar territory is almost entirely a matter of visual and kinesthetic input, and those don't interfere with the verbal channel. (If I don't have all the landmarks memorized, I'll need to read a map or talk to a navigator. That is verbal.)

 

In electronics, crosstalk can be prevented by shielding. I don't have any shields. Whatever's coming in on the highest bandwdith channel -- visual or audio, in that order -- is going to dominate my attention. I can turn my eyes away from a book or computer, but I can't turn off my ears.

I've already written about my difficulty carrying on a conversation if there are distractions. If I concentrate, I can usually manage to carry on a conversation with one or two people in a noisy party, but my attention is sure to be caught now and then by a snippet of another conversation; I'll miss things, and sometimes stop in the middle of a sentence or even a song. And it's hard. At some point it's easier for me to leave in search of someplace quiet. Even with only a half-dozen people in our living room on a Wednesday night, an animated conversation can easily drive me into the office, especially if it's on a topic I'm not interested in. They'll still have fun without me, and you know where to find me if you want quiet talk about geekery or music.

Similarly, conversation blocks writing. I really enjoy having a laptop in the living room where I can talk with Colleen, but I can't use it for writing anything more than very short LJ comments or email replies: conversation blocks the channel I use for writing. I can use IM, but I'm going to respond a lot more slowly than I would in a quiet environment.

 

Crosstalk comes into play whenever there are multiple inputs. I noticed this with cflute on our recent trip to Seattle: we were engaged in a particularly tricky and strenuous bit of carpet-moving, and when more than one person was talking Callie would raise her hand and wait for silence when she wanted to say something. It didn't always work, because we mostly had our eyes on the carpet, but it seems like a good strategy when you do have eye contact. A loud "Excuse me" might work when you don't. The equivalent in a filk circle is hitting a loud chord on the guitar, or standing up to sing a cappella.

 

To summarize: read / listen / write / talk / think. Pick exactly one.

Comments

[ravan.livejournal.com]

To summarize: read / listen / write / talk / think. Pick exactly one.

Ditto. If there's a TV on, I will watch it - video-napped - and I won't hear anything else. Same with a book or a computer screen. If several people are talking at the same time/volume, I sometimes can't hear any of them right.

This became worse with my stroke. datapard knows that if she wants to talk to me, she has to turn the TV off. Music, unless it has really "grabby" lyrics or is loud enough to override the conversation, doesn't divert me as badly.

[mdlbear]

Instrumental music is OK for me; anything with lyrics is a problem unless it's both quiet and very familiar.

[kyrielle]

Hmm. And while I do multi-task, you would be wise not to rely on it. I am effectively switching from gigabit/full duplex down to 10/half when I do it, and both/all tasks involved suffer. If I have time and ability to save one off for later resumption, I can do that, but....

I love working with my boss because when she comes in my door she always says "Do you have a minute?" (The exception is for true, burning priority issues, which is very rare and which are interrupts.) It's always the same words, which means it's become part of a pattern and I can quickly juggle things to where, yes, I can now divert my attention to her.

Sounds like I have it a little easier than you. The interesting thing to me is that studies show that people who are multi-tasking are less effective at each task. Why is this surprising? The time required to switch off between them, assuming you can, is not zero.

[mdlbear]

I've read about those studies, too. Not at all surprising to me, but it always seems to surprise the ones who think they're performing at their peak when they multitask. It's probably just because they've never tried doing one thing at a time with no distractions.

[kyrielle]

Yep. Though I wonder if a few people are at their peak when multitasking. If you can't focus in the first place, maybe then....

[mdlbear]

Maybe. Not so much a matter of being at their peak as not being able to work any other way, whether because of the way their mind works, or simple lack of practice.

[kyrielle]

*nodnods* Or a case of being unable to reach what could otherwise be their "peak" because of some quirk or lack of practice.

I suppose this is the obvious place to stick the obligatory comment about our culture glorifying speed and "multi-tasking" and yet medicating ADD and ADHD. Aren't we kind of training for it?

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of these same issues. Except that I can, and routinely do, think my way through something as I talk about it, which occasionally leads to fairly marked changes of mind in the middle of speaking :-)

Can't pay attention to one conversation if there's crosstalk in the background, check; can't screen out radio or tv except by reading (and I have a hard time getting started reading if there's something *talking* to me), check; can't listen to music and work unless the music is unobtrusive and wordless, check check check.

I literally cannot imagine why I would have the TV on if I wasn't actually watching it--if you're watching it you can't do anything else (except maybe knit,or polish something, or some other activity that does not require processor cycles), and if you're not watching it, you still can't do anything else because you can't concentrate. So what's the point?

My friends used to think it was funny watching me try to talk to them when they had the TV on. They said my eyes would shift to the TV and all the intelligence would drain out of my face in the middle of a thought.

[mdlbear]

Our culture glorifies a lot of things that aren't healthy, and has a long history of "treating" conditions that aren't really abnormal but just inconvenient. There's certainly a place for Ritalin etc., but they're almost certainly overused these days. A substitute for finding a way to keep kids interested and engaged.

Multitasking, similarly, may be partly a function of allowing kids to do homework with music or TV in the background. Our teenager has finally gotten serious about homework, and set up a card table in the living room where she and a friend can work on it without distractions, but with Colleen within easy reach for help. We'll see how long that lasts.

[mdlbear]

It's possible that I used to be better about thinking while I'm talking; on the other hand I may just have been doing more of my thinking while the other person was talking, and so missing more of what they were saying. I'm still pretty bad about that one.

When I'm in familiar conversational territory I do pretty well because I'm mostly just pulling up phrases and sometimes even whole stories that have already been thought out. Macros.

It sounds as though you have a much tighter connection between thinking and talking than I currently do. In my case they're pretty loosely coupled most of the time.

[filkferengi]

This is one reason why it takes me so long to listen to new cds. I don't generally have the patience to just sit still & listen. If I'm on the computer, then I'm doing LJ, etc., which precludes things with words. Most cds get listened to on long drives across town, which don't happen that often.

It's reassuring that so many of us are similarly caught by words.

[mdlbear]

*nodnod* Probably not all that unusual among fen.