Causes of information loss and distortion

 

The problem of loss and distortion of information in communication has been particularly acute lately. We live in an ever-changing world, so this issue is more relevant now than ever. And it is all the more relevant in an educational institution, where the teacher's communication with students acquires a functional and professionally significant character. After all, in addition to the usual functions, the specificity of pedagogical communication generates another function – the socio-psychological support of the educational process, the organizational function of the teacher's relationship with the students and acts as a means of solving educational tasks. And in order for pedagogical communication to be productive, it is necessary to minimize losses and distortion of information. In addition, do not forget that human communication is multi-objective, there are various types of communication in which teachers participate, and the effectiveness of such communication (successful assimilation of information by students, a harmonious atmosphere in the kindergarten and teaching staff, psychological comfort of each member of the team, etc.) directly depends on whether the information is delivered to the recipient in that form. in which she left the initiator of the communication. Therefore, we will try to consider the problem of loss and distortion of information in the communication process comprehensively, to understand the basic patterns of these processes and identify their causes.

Communication in a broad sense is understood as the system in which interaction is carried out; and the process of interaction; and ways of communication that allow you to create, transmit and receive a variety of information. Communication (Latin communicatio from communicare – to make common, to connect; the way of communication, the form of communication) is the object of study of many sciences: semiotics, sociology, ethnography, psychology, rhetoric, as well as cybernetics, informationology and a number of other scientific disciplines.

Today, this concept is used in two senses: - the way of communication, the connection of one place to another (for example, transport communications, underground communications); - communication, transfer of information from person (group) to person (group); a specific form of their interaction in the process of life activity using language and other signalling forms of communication. Of course, we are interested in the second meaning of this term. At the earliest stage of the development of society, people used various means of communication and communication. Man, as a social being, constantly sought to interact with other people. Most psychologists say that humans certainly have an innate need for communication. However, there is another point of view, which is to assert that the need for communication develops during life, during the actual practice of human communication with others. Thus, as a result of observation of newborn children, it was revealed that in the first months of life, children gradually develop a need for communication, which is divided into 4 stages as 4 criteria appear and ends by 2 months (8). Consequently, for each participant in the interaction, another person, his communication partner, serves as the motive for communication. During the first 7 years, the activity shown by children reaches a high level of development both in its form and content. But to achieve maximum effectiveness, children always need the participation and help of an adult. This leads to the fact that interaction with adults appears in the activities of children, and among the different types of interaction, the type of interaction that we call communication steadily occupies a permanent place. Thus, children's need for active activity becomes a source of motivation for contacting an adult and generates a special group of communication motives, which are called business motives, thereby emphasizing the main role of the business in which the child is engaged, and the official, subordinate role of communication, which the child enters into in order to achieve some practical result (objective or playful) as soon as possible. According to the developed ideas, the business motive of communication is an adult in his special capacity — as a partner in joint practical activities, an assistant and a model of correct actions (8). Thus, it is necessary to emphasize once again the importance of harmonious communication between the teacher and the child and its impact on the child's communicative competence. When people talk about communication in the narrow sense of the word, they primarily mean the fact that in the course of joint activities people exchange different ideas, interests, moods, feelings, attitudes, etc. All this can be considered as information, and then the communication process itself can be understood as a process of information exchange. From here, we can take the next tempting step and interpret the entire process of human communication in terms of information theory, which is done in a number of systems of socio-psychological knowledge. Information is understood here as a set of information necessary for the successful functioning of a communication system. However, this consideration captures only the formal side of communication.: how information is transmitted, while in the context of human communication, information is not only transmitted, but also formed, clarified, and developed. And these processes also have an impact on the subsequent distortion of information.

For example, communicative influence as a result of information exchange is possible only when the person sending the information (the communicator) and the person receiving it (the recipient) have a single or similar system of codification and decodification. In everyday language, this rule is expressed in the words: "everyone should speak the same language." But the thing is that even knowing the meanings of the same words, people may understand them differently: social, political, age-related factors may be the reason for this. L.S. Vygotsky also noted that thought is never equal to the direct meaning of words.

In addition, very specific communication barriers can arise in the context of human communication. They are not related to vulnerabilities in any communication channel or errors in encoding and decoding, but are of a social or psychological nature. On the one hand, such barriers may arise due to the lack of understanding of the communication situation caused not only by the different language spoken by the participants in the communication process, but also by the deeper differences existing between the partners. These can be social, political, religious, or professional differences, which not only give rise to different interpretations of the same concepts used in the communication process, but also generally different attitudes, worldviews, and worldviews. Such barriers are generated by objective social reasons, the affiliation of communication partners to various social groups, and when they manifest themselves, the inclusion of communication in a broader system of public relations is especially pronounced. Naturally, the communication process is carried out even in the presence of these barriers: even military opponents are negotiating. But the whole situation of the communicative act is significantly complicated by their presence.

On the other hand, barriers to communication may be more purely psychological in nature. They can arise either due to the individual psychological characteristics of the communicants (for example, excessive shyness of one of them (Zimbardo, 1993), the reticence of the other, the presence of a trait called "uncommunicativeness"), or due to a special kind of psychological relationship between the communicants: hostility towards each other, distrust, etc. etc . Do not forget about non-verbal communication. This type of communication includes the following basic sign systems: 1) optical-kinetic, 2) para- and extralinguistic, 3) organization of the space and time of the communication process, 4) visual contact (Labunskaya, 1989). The optical-kinetic sign system includes gestures, facial expressions, and pantomime. In general, the optical-kinetic system appears as a more or less clearly perceived property of the general motor skills of various parts of the body (hands, and then we have gestures; faces, and then we have facial expressions; poses, and then we have pantomimics). It is the general motor skills of various parts of the body that reflect a person's emotional reactions, so the inclusion of an optical-kinetic system of signs in a communication situation gives nuances to communication. These nuances turn out to be ambiguous when using the same gestures, for example, in different national cultures. Russian Russians are well aware of the misunderstandings that sometimes arise when communicating between a Russian and a Bulgarian, if an affirmative or negative nod of the head is used, since the movement of the head perceived by the Russian from top to bottom is interpreted as agreement, while for Bulgarian "speech" it is negation, and vice versa). All non-verbal sign systems multiply this meaning, in other words, they help to fully reveal the semantic side of information. But such an additional disclosure of meaning is possible only if the participants in the communication process fully understand the meaning of the signs and code used. One of the attempts to create a kind of general code in the field of kinetics belongs to K. Birdwhistle. Developing methodological problems in this area, Birdwhistle proposed to single out a unit of human body movements. Based on Birdwhistle's suggestion, some kind of "dictionaries" of body movements were built, and even works appeared on the number of kinami in different national cultures. But Birdwhistle himself came to the conclusion that so far it has not been possible to build a satisfactory vocabulary of body movements: the very concept of kina has turned out to be rather vague and controversial. So, even at the stage of a rather general, superficial acquaintance with the communication process, we can already identify the difficulties that contribute to the distortion and even loss of information during communication. The processes of loss and distortion of information during communication are actively studied in various disciplines, including in conflictology. Because they play a significant role in the emergence and development of conflicts. Thus, according to the definition of the "dictionary of a conflictologist", information loss during communication is a decrease in the amount of information and its distortion in the process of communication from the source to the recipient. Loss of information during communication can be either the direct cause of a conflict, or a condition contributing to its occurrence or complicating its development. The main destructive effect on pre-conflict or conflict situations is the loss of information during communication through the complication of opponents' understanding of each other. Information is lost or distorted in the process of opponents' communication for a number of reasons. Each opponent's understanding that the opposite side, due to the loss of information during communication, always has a slightly different idea of the essence of the conflict, contributes to the prevention or more constructive development of the latter.

Information distortion is also quite common in communication systems. Distortion appears in such a transfer of information, when its meaning is distorted. The loss of information is accompanied by the loss of all or part of the message. Antsupov A.Ya. in his book "Conflictology in diagrams and comments" identifies the following types of loss and distortion of information: - loss due to lack of vocabulary to verbalize their thoughts and feelings; - loss due to lack of time to express everything he thinks; - losses due to the fact that a lot of information is contained in the psyche at the level of the unconscious; - losses due to the fact that the opponent does not say everything he thinks is possible and necessary.; - losses due to the fact that opponent B simply does not listen to some of the verbal information; - distortions due to a complete or partial misunderstanding of the information received; - distortions due to different awareness of the problem, attitudes towards it and the opponent. An important role in this is played by the loss and distortion of information not only in the communication of opponents, but also in people's perception of the world around them. A person selectively perceives infinitely diverse information about the environment. The role of a filter is played by values, motives, and goals that depend on a person's worldview, education, professionalism, morality, culture, and life experience. Let's look at the main causes of information loss and distortion. Some of the information that can in principle be expressed in words is not expressed by a person due to the limitations of his vocabulary. Enriching a person's vocabulary helps prevent conflicts caused by difficulties in understanding each other. For example, A.N. Besedin's book "The Psychology of Communication and Conflict" provides a very interesting illustration of the loss and distortion of information caused by the limited vocabulary of people. This is an example of the transmission of instructions along the chain: captain - adjutant - sergeant - corporal - ordinary soldiers were the first to jokingly describe A. Mol: - Captain to the adjutant: As you know, there will be a solar eclipse tomorrow, and this does not happen every day. Assemble the personnel at 5 a.m. on the parade ground, in hiking clothes. They will be able to observe this phenomenon, and I will give them the necessary explanations. If it rains, there will be nothing to observe, in which case leave the people in the barracks. - Adjutant to Sergeant: By order of the captain, there will be a solar eclipse in hiking clothes tomorrow morning. The captain on the parade ground will give the necessary explanations, and this does not happen every day. If it rains, there will be nothing to observe, then the phenomenon will take place in the barracks. - Sergeant to the corporal: By order of the captain, tomorrow morning at 5 o'clock there will be an eclipse on the parade ground of people in hiking clothes. The captain will give the necessary explanations about this rare phenomenon if it rains, which does not happen every day. - Corporal to the soldiers: Tomorrow at the earliest, at 5 o'clock, the captain's eclipse will take place in the barracks. If it rains, then this is a rare occurrence to take place in hiking clothes, and this does not happen every day. Precisely because there is no distortion of the meaning of information, the army repeats orders.

Due to lack of time, a significant amount of information is lost in the communication process. The more intense a person's life is, the more time they spend on activities, the less time they can devote to communication. This makes it difficult for people to understand each other. In situations of interpersonal communication, a significant part of the information related to the subject of conversation exists at the level of the unconscious and, in principle, cannot be expressed in words. At the level of the unconscious and subconscious, the human psyche contains a significant amount of essential information. Some of this information can be perceived by the interlocutor using non-verbal means of communication.

Much of what a person can express in words, he does not consider it necessary to say. The reason may be the following: it is not customary to express some of what he thinks out loud, he does not express some of the information because it characterizes him from the negative side, and he considers some of the information insignificant for this conversation. Although in fact it may be significant for the interlocutor.

The listener does not assimilate some of the verbal information because he simply does not hear it, because he is distracted, thinking about his problems, etc.

Not everything that one person says is immediately clear to another. Information is lost due to the fact that the interlocutor does not have time to immediately understand everything that is being discussed. That is why oral speech should be simpler and more understandable than written speech. Based on the same information, different people can draw not only different, but also opposite conclusions about the speaker's position. Information that comes from someone can be evaluated as positive by some people and as negative by others. Each of these groups can provide their own assessment. This happens due to the different life experiences of the listeners, due to their different knowledge of the problem in question, due to their different attitudes towards the speaker, and other reasons.

The losses and distortions of information described above can lead to the fact that opponent B's idea of opponent A's position in connection with the problem under discussion may differ very markedly from the true position of the latter. Employees A and B may start arguing over the imaginary. This discrepancy in positions can escalate into a conflict, the causes of which will be informational in nature. Konovalenko M.Yu., a business consultant and psychologist, discusses the process of distortion and loss of information in his article in a very interesting way. He focuses on the deliberate distortion of information. In his opinion, people can be roughly divided into three large groups: these are people who professionally distort information, born liars - there is also such a category of people; and we are all the rest and most of the people who deceive each other from time to time out of necessity. All amateur cheaters can also be divided into two other categories: some distort information because circumstances force them to do so, and others because they cannot act otherwise. Konovalenko M.Y. also notes that, based on the personality structure, everything, even motives, will be different. So, melancholic people often distort information to avoid trouble, phlegmatic people - to defend their socio-economic interests. Choleric people - to be visible. The most striking example was Khlestakov. Baron Munzausen, etc. (6) So, the reasons for people's distortion of information are diverse. It happens that the distortion of information is not the fault of the information source, but in the process of its transmission, i.e. the source of misinformation is the transmission channel itself. Another aspect of possible information distortion is the different interpretation of the same words depending on intonation, punctuation marks, context, or associations. Konovalenko M.Y. identifies the following techniques of deliberate distortion of information: - Manipulation of the information flow - Default (concealment) - Selection is a selective pass to the interlocutor of information that is only beneficial to the deceiver. - Distortion is a way of presenting information when attention is drawn only to the facts that are most beneficial to the source of information, this is a conscious emphasis on only one side of the phenomenon that is beneficial to the deceiver. - Distortion is an understatement, exaggeration, or out of proportion. - Flipping is a reversal, replacing "black" with "white". - Falsification (fraud) is the transmission of deliberately false information on the merits of the issue under consideration. - A false explanation is that a person may also not conceal their feelings, especially if they fail to do so, but lie about their cause. By truthfully acknowledging the emotion he is experiencing, he is misleading about the reason for its appearance. - Disorientation is the transmission of irrelevant true or false information in order to distract from the substance of the issue under consideration. - A half–truth is a mixture of essential true information with essential false information, a mixture of lies and reliable information.; - Planting false evidence – it is known that people are much more likely to trust the ideas that have arisen in their own heads than the thoughts that come from another person. Therefore, experienced deceivers always try to avoid direct pressure on the victim, preferring indirect, unobtrusive influence on his way of thinking. - Creating a "non–existent reality" - using small but expressive details, a corner of fake space is created around the victim, which should give the words and actions of scammers special credibility. - Masking is an attempt to conceal any essential information with the help of some non–essential information.

* Masking an essential lie with an inconsequential lie. * Masking an essential truth with an inconsequential lie. * Masking an essential lie with an inconsequential truth. * Masking the essential truth with the help of the non-essential truth. A false conclusion is another technique to avoid telling the truth. It consists in allowing the interlocutor to draw a conclusion from what has been said himself, but at the same time lead him to ensure that this conclusion is false.

A false interpretation is logically related to the ability to introduce certain false premises into consciousness. To implement them, techniques such as "presumption of normality" are used: the communication of a large number of true and verifiable judgments, among which only one is false. Because of this, it is quite difficult to detect an untrue judgment.

Changing the context – a real-life incident is presented. But this case is transferred to a different context. This makes it possible to keep in mind a lot of small details related to this case, which creates the illusion of the truthfulness of the story.

Telling the truth under the guise of deception is another related method - telling the truth, but with overexposure, so that the victim does not believe her, i.e. telling the truth falsely.

Deception by permutation is when a potential victim is forced to try on the role of a deceiver. As a result of various psychological manipulations, the victim begins to feel that he is deceiving others, while real scammers diligently maintain this illusion up to a certain point.

In fact, each person is an information translator, a small station that sends a lot of diverse information. A person is a complex object of perception, since he is the bearer of a large number of properties that can be perceived mainly through visual and auditory channels. There are several levels of self-expression of a personality according to the criterion of awareness, purposefulness and correspondence of the expressive behavior of a personality and its internal content. 1. Involuntary non-verbal self-expression. 2. Arbitrary self-expression through non-verbal means. 3. Arbitrary speech and/or non-verbal self-expression corresponding to the inner state of the personality; 4. Arbitrary verbal and/or non-verbal self-expression aimed at forming a distorted view of one's personality. As we move from the first level to the fourth, awareness, purposefulness, and the degree of artificiality of the actions performed by a person increase. These levels of self-expression can be combined in a specific communicative act. For example, speech behavior can occur on the fourth level, i.e., it carries distorted information about a person, while nonverbal behavior at the same time can unfold on the third level, i.e., it gives out true feelings. Given the complexity and multicomponence of the information exchange process between people, for more productive communication it is necessary to be aware of the causes of loss and distortion of information and to try to minimize these losses in the communication process. In conclusion, we will consider the loss of information during communication based on the scheme developed by P. Mitsich.

When transmitting information, the idea that has arisen must first be verbalized in internal speech, then translated from internal speech into external speech, i.e. expressed. This statement must be heard and understood. It is intended to convey 100% of the information to the interlocutors. According to a certain limit of imagination, information has acquired verbal forms. An active language filter has been activated - 80% of the information has been provided to the interlocutors. The language barrier of vocabulary hinders - 70% of the information is heard. The filter of imagination and desire works - 60% of the information is understood. The interviewees have a limited amount of memorization - 24% of the information remains in memory.

So, at each stage, information is lost and distorted. The magnitude of these losses is also determined by the general imperfection of human speech, the inability to fully and accurately translate thoughts into verbal forms, as the Russian poet F. F. said figuratively. Tyutchev: "An uttered thought is a lie," and the presence or absence of trust in the interlocutor, and personal goals and aspirations (when wishful thinking is mistaken for reality), and the coincidence or discrepancy of vocabulary, and many, many others.

And yet people understand each other. Understanding is constantly being adjusted, since communication is not just the transfer of information (knowledge, factual information, instructions, orders, business messages, etc.), but the exchange of information involving feedback. It is important to be aware of this both in the process of pedagogical communication and in the process of any interpersonal communication. Because understanding the causes of distortion and loss of information in the communication process reduces the likelihood of many disagreements and conflicts between the subjects of communication. This means that it leads to the harmonization of relationships.