How do you avoid confusion when spelling things out verbally, particularly when the sound isn't clear or there may be background noise? So, for example, something like Y I V B D T doesn't unintentionally get heard as Y Y B P D D. Or perhaps as I Y P V T D. A lot of letters sound similar.

A phonetic alphabet, or spelling alphabet, is a way to ensure all letters are unambiguously heard correctly by using words starting with each letter. The set of words was chosen from 1,000s of tests, including real-life ones, to maximise clarity and avoid overlapping sounds with other letters that might cause mix-ups. When written out they include deliberate misspellings Alfa and Juliett to avoid misinterpretation.

The NATO phonetic alphabet is a standard one, but there are other variations.

Phonetic alphabet

You know that time when you couldn't concentrate at all because of someone having a phone conversation right next to you? It's the trouble with a halfalogue. Hearing only one side of a conversation, it turns out, can be more distracting than hearing the whole dialogue. This might stem from the unpredictability of the conversation — our brains working overtime to connect the dots and uncertain what's coming next.

Halfalogues were investigated in a paper by Lauren Emberson and coauthors: Overheard Cell-Phone Conversations: When Less Speech Is More Distracting. The distraction potential of halfalogues could have more serious impacts on a driver from a passenger's phone conversation in the back.

A halfalogue is a nice extension of the dialogue and monologue.

Emberson, Lauren & Lupyan, Gary & Goldstein, Michael & Spivey, Michael. (2010). Overheard Cell-Phone Conversations: When Less Speech Is More Distracting. Psychological science. 21. 1383-8. 10.1177/0956797610382126.

Halfalogue

This is a fun thought-experiment highlighting the challenges of communicating over an unreliable channel — where your message may or may not get through, and where you won’t know if it has.

The situation is that two armies, either side of a hostile valley, are trying to coordinate an attack, and they want to attack at the same time to be sure to succeed. The trouble is, to coordinate they have to send brave messengers through the hostile valley to the other camp and the messengers may or may not be captured along the way.

To coordinate the attack you have to know that your message got through which you’d know if you received a confirmation. But how would the general sending the confirmation know that their confirmation got through unless they received a confirmation of the confirmation. And on…

The two generals problem

Mnemonic from the entertaining and informative book Made to Stick.

Sketchplanations tagged with communication