Miscommunication in Doctor-Patient Communication

The effectiveness of medical treatment depends on the quality of the patient–clinician relationship. It has been proposed that this depends on the extent to which the patient and clinician build a shared understanding of illness and treatment. Here, we use the tools of conversation analysis (CA) to explore this idea in the context of psychiatric consultations. The CA “repair” framework provides an analysis of the processes people use to deal with problems in speaking, hearing, and understanding. These problems are especially critical in the treatment of psychosis where patients and health care professionals need to communicate about the disputed meaning of hallucinations and delusion. Patients do not feel understood, they are frequently non‐adherent with treatment, and many have poor outcomes. We present an overview of two studies focusing on the role of repair as a mechanism for producing and clarifying meaning in psychiatrist–patient communication and its association with treatment outcomes. The first study shows patient clarification or repair of psychiatrists’ talk is associated with better patient adherence to treatment. The second study shows that training which emphasizes the importance of building an understanding of patients’ psychotic experiences increases psychiatrists’ self‐repair. We propose that psychiatrists are working harder to make their talk understandable and acceptable to the patient by taking the patient's perspective into account. We conclude that these findings provide evidence that repair is an important mechanism for building shared understanding in doctor–patient communication and contributes to better therapeutic relationships and treatment adherence. The conversation analytic account of repair is currently the most sophisticated empirical model for analyzing how people construct shared meaning and understanding. Repair appears to reflect greater commitment to and engagement in communication and improve both the quality and outcomes of communication. Reducing potential miscommunication between psychiatrists and their patients with psychosis is a low‐cost means of enhancing treatment from both the psychiatrist and patient perspective. Given that misunderstanding and miscommunication are particularly problematic in psychosis, this is critical for improving the longer term outcomes of treatment for these patients who often have poor relationships with psychiatrists and health care services more widely

Using miscommunication to discuss communication

The main objective of this study is to delve into a cross-cultural communicative context. There is something uniquely human about the evolution of knowledge though communication. While this is seemingly a universal concept, our focus will move from what is universal about communication to what is distinctly unique about the way English and Spanish differ in similar contexts. What happens when there is a discursive clash between the languages?The main objective of this study is to delve into a cross-cultural communicative context. There is something uniquely human about the evolution of knowledge though communication. While this is seemingly a universal concept, our focus will move from what is universal about communication to what is distinctly unique about the way English and Spanish differ in similar contexts. What happens when there is a discursive clash between the languages? The underlying theories will uncover some of the main ingredients to proper discourse. Grice’s cooperative principle will play a role as will the more cognitive roles regarding the relation between discourse and memory (Braddeley, 2007). Discourse analysts study larger chunks of language as they flow together (Tannen, 2012). So ultimately, this model will frame the relation between discourse and interaction in bilingual settings, such as diplomatic circles, international business, and bilingual university classrooms, to name a few. The study aims to move beyond description to an action research methodology which is clearly grounded in practice and informed by theory. By presenting examples cross linguistically from several different contexts about how language is created in our imperfect, but highly functional bilingual brains, the discussion will challenge listeners to think not only about their message, but how that message is encoded and decoded. In the case of this demonstration, we hope to illustrate how many things we take for granted when communicating in a second language, in order to shed some light on how language shapes the way we communicate. This approach has been used in several communicative strategy workshops given to non-linguists who wanted to anticipate their miscommunication in order to improve. Effective communication is putting an idea into someone else’s head, or conversely, it is each individual’s ability to capture an idea. In the globalized world today, this interactivity is key.Plan Propio de Investigación de la UMA, Grupo Consolidado Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas, (HUM 842), Junta de Andalucía.// Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Exploring miscommunication and collaborative behaviour in human-robot interaction

This paper presents the first step in designing a speech-enabled robot that is capable of natural management of miscommunication. It describes the methods and results of two WOz studies, in which dyads of naïve participants interacted in a collaborative task. The first WOz study explored human miscommunication management. The second study investigated how shared visual space and monitoring shape the processes of feedback and communication in task-oriented interactions. The results provide insights for the development of human-inspired and robust natural language interfaces in robots

Miscommunication Code Words

Many letters have sound-alike names, for example b and p : radio operators use communication code words such as BRAVO and PETER to avoid confusing these letters. A committee of logologists got together to try to submit a more interesting list of code words, drawing only on words from Webster\u27s Third. Here is the list they produced (B, N, R, and S need better examples)

An Investigation of Intercultural Miscommunication Experiences

Communication, which has always been one of the basic elements of life, is becoming more and more intercultural in today’s world. People are not only transferring goods and technology among nations; they are also transferring their thoughts, ideas, and cultures. As this flow of communication among nations becomes common, intercultural communication problems, which can be called intercultural miscommunication, is becoming common as well. This paper investigates possible reasons for miscommunication among people from different cultures. Twenty-two participants from different nationalities took part in the study, and shared their intercultural miscommunication experiences. The researchers analyzed these miscommunication experiences by classifying them according to the categories suggested in the literature and the categories the researchers themselves suggested. The participants’ feelings and thought about their miscommunication experiences were also investigated. This study showed that there are many causes and factors that can lead to intercultural miscommunication. Thus, effort, desire and patience is needed a lot to get better mutual understanding and learn more about cultural differences so that we can increase cross-cultural awareness

Matching Evaluation Approaches to Expectations

In the nonprofit sector, evaluation is a word that gets used a lot. Different kinds of data gathering approaches with different purposes sometimes get lumped together under the general heading of evaluation. This can lead to miscommunication and unrealistic expectations. To try to clear things up a bit, we have created this resource

Miscommunication in the institutional context of the broadcast news interview : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Psychology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

This study examined the pattern and relative success of linguistic interaction in the Broadcast News Interview (BNI). BNI is modelled as a genre of institutional communication. The psychological and functional characteristics of the BNI were examined from the viewpoint of how communicative conventions that normally regulate interview performance may, at times, impede effective communication. The BNI is intended to transfer information from an expert witness to an interested, though relatively uninformed audience. The interviewer is supposed to act as both conduit and catalyst. Pragmatic properties of the interlocutors' speech as they orient themselves towards the context of the conversation was analysed in order to reveal the manner in which prior assumptions or beliefs may lead to faulty inferences. The notion of miscommunication is used to describe and explain the faults associated with processes of representing the illocutionary force of an utterance, rather than deficiencies in pronunciation or auditory sensation and perception. Opting for a qualitative analysis, an attempt was made to ground explanations in relevant theoretical models of interpersonal communication and communication failure. Results indicate that the conventions that distinguish the BNI from more mundane types of interaction impede successful communication. The study highlights that participants who wish to attain their communicative goal must be more aware of the functional procedures of the BNI and anticipate impediments to successful communication