Comments on: Why are overheard phone conversations so distracting?

By: Gregory

Gregory — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:31:21 +0000

I’m curious from a cog psy and legal point of view the complexities that could be raised via our notions of confabulation.

By: Susan Weinschenk

Susan Weinschenk — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 22:21:00 +0000

This study is a little different from Monk’s 2004 study. Monk’s study investigated whether the half a logue’s were truly annoying and found they were. this study replicated the annoyance, but went on to hypothesize WHY it’s annoying…

and even if they were the same… it’s always good to replicate.

By: Calum

Calum — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:04:31 +0000

Nothing new here; Andrew Monk studied and published this phenomenon back in 2004.

http://onlineacademics.org/CA517/NoAccessPermittedCopyrighted/517MonkCellPhone.pdf

By: Jeff Yager

Jeff Yager — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 20:20:00 +0000

I wonder if there’s not another explanation. When I hear someone talking nearby, but don’t hear someone immediately answer them, I wonder if they are talking to me for a brief second until I realize they’re on the phone. This is in contrast to the conversations I hear because I hear someone else answering, therefore I know it’s not me that they are speaking to. I couldn’t get access to the full article, so I couldn’t tell if they somehow controlled for this explanation.

By: Why Overheard Phone Conversations Are More Annoying Than Normal Ones | Defamer Australia

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 16:29:24 +0000

[...] an incessant yakker drives you crazy on a plane or bus, tell them to put it on speaker or STFU. [MindHacks via @slate, image via Shutterstock] [...]

By: mariawolters

mariawolters — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 19:44:49 +0000

You might want to add the following commentary by LanguageLog to the main post, which points out some interesting methodological issues with this piece of work: Link

By: Anna G

Anna G — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 23:36:40 +0000

If I’m in the company of friends and they speak on the cell phone – it does not bother me that I am listening to a ‘half-a-logue’, nor do I wonder what the unheard half of the conversation is about.

But strangers are another matter. I feel as though they have invaded my space and I just want them to shut-up! I am not interested in their half of the conversation – never mind the unheard half.

I use mine as little as possible, but admit that I am aware my voice is raised on the rare ocassion I do use it! Personally, I think this is because of all the noise around me – I can barely hear who I am speaking to, and I assume they can’t hear me either.

By: ronb2

ronb2 — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:25:16 +0000

Natural human curiosity causes me to try to guess what question or comment prompted the statements I overhear. So the thought process moves forward and backward and forward again, from the overheard response back to possible prompts for it, then forward again to the next overheard reply. This adds to the challenge of deciphering the overall topic of conversation. Having ADD and no filter to block unwanted audio distractions like this, these half-conversations are a bigger distraction to me than complete conversations which, depending on the voices and topic of conversation, can often blend into the white noise of everyday life.

By: Marin

Marin — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:37:19 +0000

It makes sense, but I think people tend to talk louder on the phone, and even louder on cell phones (for some reason, even *louder* in elevators), which contributes.

By: One-sided conversations for language learning « East Asia Student

One-sided conversations for language learning « East Asia Student — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:08:11 +0000

[...] on Thursday 9th September, 2010 at 15:08 Mind Hacks has an interesting write-up of a study on overheard phone conversations, which tries to understand why someone talking nearby on a phone is far more distracting (and thus [...]