River: Aha[3]: the other part of the phone phobia

[mdlbear]

I think I must be able to read facial expressions better than I usually give myself credit for. I can recognize at least some emotions when I see them, at least enough to know that I have to ask for clarification.

I'm a lot worse at reading tone of voice. That probably has a lot to do with why I'm much more uncomfortable on the phone than I am with either text (which I can edit, and where I can take enough time to be very explicit about saying exactly what I mean) or face-to-face, (where I can get visual feedback and correct my mistakes immediately).

Comments

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

I got better at reading - and meaningfully using - tone of voice when I started thinking of it in much the same way I do music.

And after someone explained to me that for most people, minor key = sad. (Minor key, and especially minor sevenths, are so beautiful in my ear that they make me feel happy, unless there's word-meanings to guide my brain the the other way.)

[mdlbear]

I understand the difference between major and minor in music, but I don't think I've ever heard the difference in somebody's speaking voice.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Well, people's voices don't do chords, per se, they only do one note at a time. (In normal circumstances, anyway; it's possible to sing/chant with more than one note, but I've never heard of it being done in conversation.)

You have to listen to the "melody" and "tempo" and "rhythm" in the words they are speaking. If your brain can do it fast enough, you might be able to tell "if you were accompanying them, would you accompany them with major or minor chords", but mine doesn't, at least not on any conscious/accessible level. The major/minor example was more of a funny side note.

What I'd suggest for you is paying attention to the melody, tempo, and rhythm of people's spoken words. At first concentrate on this while you can also watch them; the reason is similar for providing pictures in young children's books--to help them find the meaning in the written words. I suspect that after paying attention to both for a while, your brain will start to find the meaning in the "music" of the spoken word, and telephone conversations will start to be more comfortable.

hmm...don't tell your brain NOT to pay attention during telephone calls at first, just don't necessarily expect that paying attention without the extra cues will help until you start to understand some of what you are just starting to pay attention to. I suspect it would be a bad idea for you to program your brain to even temporarily not pay attention; it's harder to erase subroutines from the brain than from a computer!

another afterthought--it might help speed up the process to watch little kids, around kindergarten age; that's an age when the kids often emphasize the emotional cues in both vocal tone and body language (I theorize because they and their friends are just learning them), or get some adult co-conspirator who's willing to ham it up for a while to demonstrate--exaggeration could act like a magnifying glass to help you figure out what things to watch for. Another possibility is to get Colleen (or someone else) to watch TV/movies with you or listen to the radio with you and point out things she sees (they see) as having emotional meaning.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Everyone else is right. I know you have a musician's ear for melody, pitch, and tempo, and these are all things that modulate the spoken word to convey emotion and mood. You can teach yourself, and/or be taught, what the associations are.

Simplistically, if a person is speaking very quickly, at a slightly higher pitch than is normal for them, they're excited. If they're speaking quickly but with wide variations in pitch, they're probably upset and stressed. If they speak more slowly than usual, and in a lower pitch range, they're either depressed or tired. If they're speaking slowly, but in a more normal pitch, they may be putting a lot of thought into what they're saying. (I learned most of this in radio, from the point of view of modifying my own speech to express specific emotions. And did you know that even the average untrained person can hear the difference if an unseen speaker is smiling when they talk?)

[chaoswolf]

Been there too. Horrible place that. I can read selkit well enough to know he's tired and just woken up when I talk to him on the phone, but that's usually because he claims it's insomnia. Until he has a sleep study done to prove this theory, I'm going to call it that it's because I'm not there and insists on staying up until he must sleep during the day because it's the only time he'll be able to as long as we're seperated.

Reading him face-to-face is another story. I'm usually good at that, but still have trouble when he stays up for multiple hours after I claim to have gone to bed and insists on sleeping the next morning and taking over 2 hours to commune with the blanket until his back stops spazzing. You may wish to recommend some excercizes to him, as I know that there are a few you like.

[mdlbear]

Could try. Corner me some time next week.