Book Review - You Are Not Listening - Kate Murphy (Part VI)

We do not have very good hearing, although humans are the most intelligent creatures in the world. Animals have better hearing than humans. Animals are so sensitive that they can even hear climate changes and natural phenomena. However, humans are particularly good at distinguishing and categorizing sounds and, perhaps most importantly, attributing meaning to what we hear.

We have an auditory system that helps us convert sounds into meaningful sentences. It's unclear how many other areas of the brain are involved in speech understanding, nor how much it differs between humans. When we listen to someone speak, our brains process not only words but also pitch, loudness, pitch, and the flow of tones. Even if the text is completely obscure, humans can reliably interpret the emotional side of a message.

Which ear you use in different situations or with different people may also indicate how you process messages. Focus group moderator Naomi Henderson noticed that when people tilt their heads to the right and raise their left ear, it's often a sign that they're tapping into a more emotional part of themselves. It's also fascinating to notice which ear others gravitate towards you, and how it changes depending on the topic of conversation.

This leads to an interesting theory: We have a right-ear advantage when it comes to processing auditory information. Generally speaking, we understand language better and faster with our right ear than with our left ear. In contrast, the left ear has an advantage when it comes to recognizing the emotional aspects of speech and perceiving and appreciating music and sounds in nature. This is why what we hear may be different from what we learned, and in some cases, we may not be good listeners.