Types of Noise Physical Noise

Physical noise is external to the speaker and listener. It includes things such as the sounds of road construction outside your window that make it difficult to hear what is being said. Psychological Noise

Psychological noise is mental interference that prevents you from listening. If your mind is wandering when someone is speaking to you, the noise in your head is preventing communication. Physiological Noise

Physiological noise is any physiological issue that interferes with communication. For example, if you have a migraine, it may be difficult to speak to others or listen to them when they speak to you. Semantic Noise

Semantic noise occurs when there is no shared meaning in a communication. This often occurs when someone is dealing with medical professionals, lawyers, scientists or others who use terminology that lay people may not understand.

Types of Noise Noise in communication can be of several types: Environmental noise: noise in the surrounding environment, vehicles moving, birds chirping, students giggling and many more Physiological impairment noise: this noise is created due to physiological limitations like partial or full deafness, or blindness or inability to understand normal communications like low IQ. Semantic noise: here a particular word may have several meanings, like the word drugs. Syntactical noise: these are mistakes in construction of sentences or grammatical mistakes the give a whole different meaning to the sentence

Organizational noise: if the matter that is being conveyed is organized improperly with no clear flow or direction of thought, the listener may get lost. Cultural noise: certain stereotypes can lead to misunderstandings. Psychological noise: this is when the receiver or listener is not in the right frame of mind to interpret the said words as they were meant. This could be due to anger, sadness, happiness or frustration or any other reason. Conclusion to Noise Back to Top

A good communication process is the one that aims at eliminating the above said types of noise in communication process. The communication will be clear, concise and effective and likely to be well understood by the listener.