The art of listening

Hearing and listening are two very different processes. 

Hearing is passive and listening is dynamic. From the moment we are born, listening is the first communication skill we engage in and this is how we learn and develop spoken language. It is our ability to select information with attention, intent and effort. Listening also involves memory, knowledge, thinking, problem solving, intellectual capacity and application of learned and acquired knowledge to new situations.It allows us to focus on the sound information we find useful whilst filtering out noises in the environment or background. For example, a person with normal hearing in a busy restaurant is always aware of the noise, but they have the natural ability to ignore this and focus on conversation without any effort. We live in a 3 dimensional world of sound. We hear from the left and the right, front and back, top and bottom. Individuals with normal hearing have a remarkable ability to select the important information they need and then follow this information with very little effort.