Team Paper.

With the University of Phoenix online (UoPhx), classes are divided into teams and given team assignments as well as our individual assignments, to prepare us for future co-authoring research findings I suppose. Here is our first psych class team paper in my intro class; the assignment being given to identify obsticles to be considered in our Team 'conference call' meetings. I was given the duties for paragraph 5, but we all answered questions for each paragraph and then did the editing as a group.







Do you hear what I hear?
Learning Team D:
Karen Blye
Vanessa Flores
M. “Sonny” Keating Jr.
Dan Pimm
Jeff Pippin
Michelle Eklund-Rentfrow
University of Phoenix
PSY/300
January 27, 2008







Do you hear what I hear?
Sensation, perception and attention abilities vary with each individual team member. To effectively communicate as a team each team member must be aware of those varying abilities and accommodate them. While there are individual differences, many of the barriers to effective communication were similar for team members and can be prevented. By learning about the barriers to team communication, preventative strategies can be implemented to minimize or eliminate the negative impact of communication barriers. With each team members differences in mind we analyze the teams’ threshold for auditory stimuli which are recognized as circumstantial and conditional. Each team member expressed the idea that personal thresholds vary due to environmental and personal factors. Environmental factors may be location, background noise or other auditory interruptions. Personal factors were identified as fatigue, medical issues, and physical hearing loss. Team members agreed that environmental and personal factors caused divided attention issues and negatively affected communication. In a thesis written by Jan Richard of Bryn Mawr College, the threshold for auditory stimuli was tested and indicated the input of stimuli causing divided attention distractions to the listener reduced memory and communication (Richard, 2006). This indicates that it will be important to minimize distractions and to mentally and physically prepare for team meetings enabling effective communication. Team members can take steps to control their environment by minimizing noise, getting enough rest and addressing any physical needs prior to team meetings to ensure the team members will be at higher thresholds for team meetings. A specific auditory topics addressed was dichotic listening, or the ‘cocktail party’ phenomenon. Our team members have very similar responses when comparing answers to the question about our comfort level when it comes to dichotic listening, or the “cocktail party” phenomenon. The majority of the group said that their dichotic listening skills are not very high and still most of us multi-listen at some point in the day almost everyday. Music on an i-pod or just having the radio playing in the background was a common occurrence for most team members. The cocktail party phenomenon “is a psychoacoustic phenomenon that refers to the remarkable human ability to selectively attend to and recognize one source of auditory input in a noisy environment, where the hearing interference is produced by competing speech sounds or a variety of noises that are often assumed to be independent of each other (Cherry, 1953)”( Haykin & Chen, 2005). All team members indicated some difficulty in the divided attention aspect of the cocktail phenomenon. Therefore, the cocktail phenomenon can have a negative influence on our conversations with people because our attentions are being pulled in two opposite directions and we do not give 100% of our attention to either conversation making it hard to get from them what we should have. Most of us will agree that in order to get our full attention we need one on one conversation with little or no background noise. People have different ways of learning. A blind person would learn mostly by hearing, and a deaf person would learn mostly by seeing. A person that can see and hear at the same time has the best advantage to stimulate the brain to learn the concept quicker. Our other senses such as touch, smell, and taste also contribute to the way we learn. An example of using other senses to learning would be by shadowing a co-worker to learn your job duty; smelling a vegetable and tasting it then realizing whether you like it or not. Eliminating distractions helps learning because one is focused only on one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is also another way to learn. Some people are able to adjust to more than one stimuli at the same time, thus learning to do more than one thing. Multi-tasking works all thresholds for stimuli and some people can remember better this way. A perfect example of a talented multi-tasker is Leonardo De Vinci “He was ambidextrous and could write and paint with both hands at the same time” (Walnut, 2006). When attention is needed to one situation more than the other it can cause confusion if one is distracted by other visual or audio stimuli. At times, what one smells can also cause a distraction. Talking on the phone with an important person that is giving viable information on how to solve a problem, and having a child needing one to give them attention while (at the same time) one is cooking dinner is how a person can get confused and distracted. Not giving 100% attention to important details will lower the threshold for understanding. People also learn in different environments. In a quiet room, with no noise at all is helpful to learning since the threshold for audio stimuli is low for most of our team members. While some of our team members would still be able to concentrate and retain information in a louder environment. Dividing attention in relation to learning depends on how the person can adjust, multi-task, and learn with or without distractions.

Not only can dividing attention facilitate or impede team members but age, illness, fatigue, and cognitive differences involved in attention to auditory input challenge us as a group in conference call meetings. Age and an excessively noisy work environment can lead to hearing loss; and changes in threshold cause significant individual perceptual difficulties. The sensorineural hearing loss reported by Dan and Sonny is caused by prolonged exposure to noise that damages hair tissue and nerve fiber in the inner ear and is also caused by age, as stated by the University of Chicago Medical Center, and affects nearly one third of some 30 million Americans who suffer hearing loss (2008). Physical and mental health issues reported by Jeff and Sonny, added to the daily fatigue affecting each of us, decrease the ability to concentrate on hearing and paying attention to what is said and how it is perceived. What is said during group conferences is perceived individually and interpreted differently, according to each person’s socio-cultural, educational background. Scientists “have found that the part of the brain that deals with sound, the auditory cortex, is adapted in each individual and tuned to the world around us.” ScienceDaily (Jan. 14, 2008). Each of us perceives the same stimuli in our own individual manner. Using what we have learned about our team members we know that every team member has different needs and different recommendations for rules when it comes to accommodating our auditory sensation, perception, and attention to learning during team meetings. Because we are attending classes via the internet, our team will hold meetings through conference calls. In order to prepare for our conference calls each team member should prepare by making sure their work environment is clean and organized to avoid distractions during the meeting. The work environment should be quiet of all causes of divided attention such as loud harsh music, televisions, other phones, families and animals. This enables everyone to be able to give their undivided attention, will be able to hear all communications, and no one involved in the meeting will feel distracted. Each team member should be sure to take care of any health care needs so the team member will be able to remain attentive, retaining and understanding the information shared during the meeting. During meetings, we will employ respectful communication skills with all team members. We will accomplish this by taking turns talking, listening and hearing each other. We will give each statement or point valid consideration, taking care not to leave anyone out of the conversation. We will understand individual differences, needs, strengths and weaknesses, properly and appropriately communicate ideas, and clarify misunderstood points with appropriate feedback and paraphrasing. At the end of each conference call, we will summarize the meeting to be sure that everyone understood the topics discussed and the goals and plans that were made for the team and each team member. Effective team communication is vital to the success of the team. Understanding the barriers to effective communication allows team members to implement strategies to minimize negative impacts on communication. Team members can prepare for meetings by being well rested, addressing physical or medical needs before meetings, and eliminating audible distractions. With each team member prepared for a meeting, the resulting positive effect on team communication will be noticeable. By controlling these barriers to effective communication, the team will be prepared and empowered for success in team projects.








References
Haykin, Simon., & Chen, Zhe. (2005). The cocktail party problem. Neural.
computation, 17 (9), 1875-1902. Retrieved January 20, 2008, from EBSCO host database
Richard, J.A. (2006). Remember the Source: Effects of divided attention on source
memory for modality with visual and auditory stimuli. Bryn Mawr College, Bryn
Mawr, PA.
Science Daily. (2008 January 14). Lend Me Your Ears, And The World Will Sound Very Different. Retrieved January 20, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080113212745.htm
The University of Chicago Medical Center. (2008). Noise-Induced Hearing Loss. Retrieved January 20, 2008, from http://www.uchospitals.edu/online-library/content=P00458
Walnut, W. (2006). Creative thinking with. Leonardo Da Vinci. Retrieved January 21, 2008, from
http://www.creativethinkingwith.com/Leonardo-da-Vinci.html


Taa da! Not graded yet, so I can only say in my personal opinion; it's brilliant!