Preconceived expectations filter what we physically hear in conversation

Evidence

You will be surprised how often misunderstandings happen in communication, how often you can only correctly reproduce a fraction of what was said. Our preconceived opinions and expectations serve as a filter that already takes effect in the physical reception of information. In short, we hear what we expect to hear. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 392

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to confirmation bias and selective attention literature, also to the Milgrom/Social Capital work on information filtering in the reader’s knowledge base. — connects to: Experience arrives pre-charged with meaning rather than as raw sense data — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 490; Perception arrives pre-shaped by expectations and context, never raw — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 729

Related

• Confirmatory filtering operates already at the level of perception and memory. (similarity 0.81)
• Perception arrives pre-shaped by expectations and context, never raw (similarity 0.79)
• Perception is a brain interpretation that need not use all sensory detail (similarity 0.79)
• Initial stereotypes bias perception of identical evidence to confirm themselves (similarity 0.78)