By Manny Roman, CRES
As is usually the case, what I write about is brought on by an event that transpires in my daily activities. The topic of this writing is no different.
I have hearing loss due to my Army experience, and to old age of course. I rarely wear hearing aids. I expect that people who know me will compensate for my hearing loss by speaking more loudly and clearly since they are aware of this. Last week, my lovely wife Ruth and I came home from a small socially distanced gathering of neighbors. As we came in the door she said something. I replied with my usual, “What?” Being very sensitive to her feelings, I noticed that she was a little irritated at having to repeat what she said, especially three times. Rather than say “What?” for a fourth time, I said, “You have the curse of hearing.” She has no problem hearing and understanding so she has difficulty accepting that I cannot.
This is the curse of hearing.
Let me explain. I have spoken about the curse of knowledge before. This curse essentially states that what we know gets in the way of communication because we just cannot imagine that the other person does not possess the same knowledge. Even when we are attempting to “teach” that knowledge, the fact that we already know it influences how we present the information. Our presentation is already biased toward the knowledge and we underestimate what is actually required to transfer that knowledge. We overestimate understanding and move on.
In my opinion, the curse of knowledge is actually a two-way street. In one direction, we assign our knowledge onto others and assume that they understand from our knowledge perspective. If you have ever played charades you understand this very well. As we mime what is obvious to us, we can’t believe that others don’t see what we see. In experiments, one group was assigned to tap out well-known songs and predict the percentage of the other group that would name the song correctly. The tappers guessed that 50% of the guessing group would get it right. The actual correct percentage was 2.5%. The tappers knew the songs so they assigned that knowledge unto the guessers.
The other direction of the curse of knowledge is the curse of lack of knowledge. Not knowing and understanding something limits our ability to sympathize and empathize. As I write this in mid May, the loss of life and economic turbulence caused by the COVID-19 pandemic does not feel real to me. We have been in self-isolation for more than two months. However, we are mostly retired in a “NORC” – a naturally occurring retirement community. The outside world is something that we see and hear about on TV. The suffering that must be occurring in our country is incomprehensible to me because I have not actually experienced it. I can almost believe those who say, “As long as it doesn’t affect me, there is no problem.”
What can we do to better interface and connect with others while we all suffer from the two-way street of the curse of knowledge?
We must acknowledge the existence of this curse in all of us. We must acknowledge that it is in fact a two-way street. We must acknowledge that real communication requires work and attention to details. We must ensure to always communicate as if we will be misunderstood and we will misunderstand.
I have been in the training business most of my life. A prerequisite for every instructor should always be to know the audience and frame the presentation from the knowledge perspective of that audience. As trainers we were always aware of the need to take our audience from the known to the unknown, not from the unknown to the incomprehensible. Communication is always key and presentation is extremely important to comprehension. If you actually read these things, you know that I often state that there is no communication without feedback. Ask for feedback and demand the opportunity to provide feedback to ensure understanding.
On another note, my hearing loss can also be a blessing. In crowds and loud environments such as restaurants I just nod and smile as if I understand. I may even make a body language gesture of agreement. The speaker will either be satisfied that no more words are needed or frown and move on to someone else leaving me to enjoy my wine.
By the way, I also lost peripheral vision in my right eye due to a detached retina. Ruth often magically appears on my right side and startles me. She also has the curse of appearing.