When you’re trying to follow a conversation, you might be so focused on what someone is saying that you miss their emotional cues, yet those cues can reflect how someone is feeling. This can be almost as important as what’s being said.
The human voice carries a great deal of information that offers important clues for recognizing someone’s voice as well as their emotions.
Emotions can affect a person’s pitch when they’re speaking. When you are frightened or excited, the muscles around your voice box contract. This strains your vocal cords, causing your voice to pitch higher.
When someone is happy or angry, speech tends to be higher in overall pitch and can have a louder intensity. If you are happy or angry, you also tend to speak quickly compared to someone who’s talking with little emotion.
Beyond reading someone’s body language and facial cues, picking up the feeling and meaning in conversations takes practice. And listening for pitch isn’t always easy with a sound processor.
How to pick up emotions in conversation
So, how do you get started? Every time you walk out your front door, you have opportunities to overhear conversations all around you that will help you build skills to recognize emotional cues.
Take advantage of your daily environment, wherever you are. For example, you may overhear conversations while sitting on the bus or enjoying a coffee at a café.
Another great tool is the Cochlear™ CoPilot app1, which offers tips with different and easy ways to practice your communication skills.
Using the app, you can set practicing sessions to focus on listening to pitch whenever you have some down time. This will help you get familiar with the voices of friends and family, as well as read their emotions.
TedTalks are another good source for practicing, or any podcasts that feature storytelling.
Listening for a purpose
These activities allow you to practice listening without the added focus of being part of a conversation. This is listening for a purpose and gives you a chance to deepen your communication skills.
Think of these moments throughout your day as short sessions where you can listen for the emotion in a conversation without being emotionally invested.
Having a bit of distance – physically and emotionally – is a quick and simple chance to practice listening for purpose.
Next time you overhear a conversation, ask yourself these key questions:
- Are they talking slow or fast?
- Are they speaking at a high pitch or in lower tones?
- Can you tell the difference between voices?
- Do you notice if anyone is speaking with an accent?
- Are the speakers female or male? An adult or child?
- Are they changing topics of conversations?
Casual conversations expose you to a wider variety of speakers, voices, accents and types of conversations. Learning to listen “how” someone says something beyond “what” they are saying can hone your ability to follow conversations more meaningfully.
Find out more about listening for emotions and more ways to practice with Cochlear CoPilot. It’s fun, easy to use and you can download it from the Apple ® App store2. Get started today.
- Cochlear CoPilot is available on Apple® App Store. For compatibility information visit www.cochlear.com/compatibility
- Apple, the Apple logo, FaceTime, Made for iPad logo, Made for iPhone logo, Made for iPod logo, iPhone, iPad Pro, iPad Air, iPad mini, iPad and iPod touch are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
