Why men don't listen to women

[GirlinContempt]

http://channels.netscape.com/men/package.jsp?name=fte/womenspeak/womenspeak

When men and women speak, the human brain processes the sounds of those voices differently, Britain's Mirror and Agence France Presse report of a new study from the U.K.'s University of Sheffield. While most of us actually hear female voices more clearly, men's brains hear women's voices first as music. But it's not music. It's someone giving them a honey-do list. So the brain goes into overdrive trying to analyze what is being said

[RevCheesehead]

1. So the Sirens' Songs were a "honey-do" list?

:rofl: No wonder they're so confused!

[SeattleGirl]

3. Bwahahahahaha!

Good one, Rev! :rofl:

[WCGreen]

2. What, is someone talking.....

[SeattleGirl]

4. Here, maybe this'll get your attention:

:spank: :spank: :spank: :evilgrin:

[WCGreen]

10. Ah, I guess that means I have something to do today....

Football Football Football

But what could that something be.....

Football Football Football

I don't know...

I guess I better go watch some football, it will come to me then, I am sure....

[SeattleGirl]

22. Leave me alone, man! I'm trying to watch a football game!

:rofl:

[WCGreen]

32. Football.. Smotzball..... I just wanna be where the girls are....

[SeattleGirl]

35. I bet you do!

:evilgrin:

[WCGreen]

36. I'm just built that way....

[SeattleGirl]

37. Uh huh.....

You just can't help it, huh? :evilgrin:

[WCGreen]

38. Comfort, cuddling, not for speed....

[RevCheesehead]

39. There are those magic words again.

Be still, my heart.... :loveya:

[WCGreen]

40. They wrote a song about me.....

The sixty minute man.....

[RevCheesehead]

41. * thud *

(sound of the Cheese hitting the floor)

Cupcake?

[WCGreen]

42. I love them when they come in pairs and have those

red cherries pointing at ya from all that decadent frosting...

[RevCheesehead]

43. I just love the way the icing

is so smooth and creamy and dripping all over....

[WCGreen]

44. Especially if it is made with real cream.....

[SeattleGirl]

45. Am I gonna have to tell the two of you to get a room?

:spank: :spank: :spank:

[WCGreen]

46. Only if you come along.....

[SeattleGirl]

47. Well, hmmmm, uh....

Okay!!! :evilgrin:

[WCGreen]

49. Way cool....

And since a reverend is involved, nothing untoward is gonna happen, right....

[RevCheesehead]

48. What a fabulous idea!

Can you arrange that?

[WCGreen]

50. Must win lottery... Must win lottery....

[RevCheesehead]

51. I think you just did, sweetie.

:o

[WCGreen]

52. I feel faint... The vapors... The vapors....

Oh My....

[SeattleGirl]

53. Snap out of it!

:spank: :spank: :spank:

[WCGreen]

54. Okay, okay.... for a moment there...

I was in heaven...

[RevCheesehead]

55. Welcome to my world.

O8)

[WCGreen]

56. I get it....

Are you a randy Reverend.....

Or pius and pure...

[RevCheesehead]

57. what do you think?

I'd say a little of both - but not necessarily pious. That's too constipated.

[WCGreen]

58. Nothin' worse than a plugged minister....

[RevCheesehead]

59. Remember that the next time Robertson opens his mouth.

When I had one particularly difficult church, I swear I was going to give everyone a Christmas gift of Ex-Lax and Viagra.

[WCGreen]

60. Let it flow, let it flow.....

[tigereye]

5. they listen

they just don't always seem to understand what we are saying!

[JVS]

6. "It's someone giving them a honey-do list"

That is why they are not listening. Do it your fucking-self!

[GirlinContempt]

18. Well whoever wrote the thing

used a stupid example. Science still wins.

[Pharlo]

7. Well, they don't exactly prove that men actually listen to other men

it just says men hear women differently than they do other men.

It's been my experience that there's a large difference between hearing someone and listening to them.

[wildhorses]

9. yes, that is what I think...

hearing is passive, requiring no energy
listening is active and requires comprehension. Fully engaging the brain and the concept of a response is implied.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

13. You and Pharlo have gotten it exactly right!

Hearing and listening are very different!

And just try to get a response.......whew.....not easy...

[Joe Chi Minh]

62. We all do it to some extent, but I think

women seem to talk in riddles much more than men. They will make a statement, which was really intended as a question, but if you don't say something in response, they get offended and perhaps ratty. I think women value conversation much more as a means of social communication or bonding than of conveying information.

The two gender extremes seem to me best exemplified by an actor like Steve McQueen - not an actor I rate particularly highly - and the female talking heads and politicians on the box. The latter always seem to smile like mad, particularly at the close of the programme, and for no apparent reason. It's not as if they were entertainers. At least in a technical sense.

But I don't know if I've ever seen McQueen smile in a film, though I'm sure I must have on occasions. And in "Bullit", never wordy at the best of times, it was striking how economical he was with his words when speaking to some bloke in a menial job, where a less empathetic, more pushy and ambitious male would have felt the need to spell out whatever he wanted to communicate. It seemed like respect, fellow-feeling, a kind of implicit camaraderie. They basically thought in the same ways, even though they did different jobs.

[wildhorses]

67. but you and I are proving to be the exact opposite of your theory

notice the wordiness of your resonse as opposed to the brevity of my original post...

[Joe Chi Minh]

81. True. Mind you, to be fair to myself, I am speculating aloud.

It's not so much chit-chat as discursive musing. Which I suppose we are prone to do, as much as the deadlier of the species.

Still, I'm not crazy about it, but I'm word-oriented, rather than maths-oriented, which former aptitude is normally a female attribute I believe. Also, though my wife doesn't grasp the nature of simple mechanisms, she's better at DIY; which is not saying much. Still, though it was a mysterious aberration, people compliment my painting handiwork on the walls and ceilings of our living room and passage. Ornate friezes, mark you!

I found the roller much better than paint brushes. But when it comes to paper hanging, we're both completely hopeless. One day, I hope to watch someone do it and try and figure out what we do wrong.

Anyway, I've known plenty of very female engineers and the like, so evidently nothing's absolute.

[GirlinContempt]

15. Hearing and listening are different

but imagine being a loud bar. It's going to be harder to actively listen to someone because you can't hear them.
Make sense?

[El Fuego]

8. I was explaining to my guy friend how .mp3 files work

I told him that the files are compressed by removing the sounds the human ear doesn't process anyway. And he looks at me and says, "Oh you mean like women talking?"

I had to laugh!

[GirlinContempt]

16. Thats hilarious

[Strong Atheist]

11. If a falling woman talks in a forest

of men, is any noise made?

[kanrok]

12. Shhhh...the game's on

[rug]

14. Can you repeat this?

I didn't quite get it.

[GirlinContempt]

17. grunt grunt

clearer? ;)

[rug]

19. Now you're using my vocabulary!

:smoke:

[GirlinContempt]

20. mmmph

ugh ugh

[ghostsofgiants]

21. But I don't listen to men either...

I always just assumed it was because I didn't give a shit.

[SeattleGirl]

23. Hahahaha!

Zing!

[GirlinContempt]

24. You're a special case

You just dont listen to anyone..

[ghostsofgiants]

25. Yeah, that's right.

[GirlinContempt]

27. I don't know what to do anymore. Except maybe die

[PowerToThePeople]

26. You say something? n/t

[LostInAnomie]

28. What? Is someone in the kitchen trying to talk to me?

:hide:

[SeattleGirl]

29. Ooooh, you'd BETTER hide!

You can go ahead an ignore me, but I would expect it to be YOU in the kitchen....you can ignore me just as well by cooking and cleaning as you can by watching football! Besides, I'm watching the Seahawks, so leave me alone! :rofl:

[asthmaticeog]

30. And all these years I thought it was just cuz y'all are stupid!

The scales have fallen from my eyes now, though, allowing them to freely do this ==> :crazy:

[GirlinContempt]

31. So speaketh the pantless wonder

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

33. Hmmmm, Music? Interesting Study.

I would've sworn they were gonna say it sounds like nails on a chalkboard, but ok, music it is :)

[GirlinContempt]

34. Not sounds like

but is processed like ;)

[Kellanved]

61. call it a natural spam-filter

:evilgrin:
n/t

[GoddessOfGuinness]

63. Someone please tell me...

"It's not the pitch of the woman's voice, but rather the vibration and number of sound waves that cause the problem."

Isn't pitch determined by the number of sound waves?

I'm not sure what they're talking about here...

[GirlinContempt]

72. This ones a bit better

hope it helps:
http://neurobiology.pharyngula.org/index.php/neuro/comments/music_to_your_ears/

[GoddessOfGuinness]

73. Thanks...

I think the quote in the other article shouldn't have been included... :hi:

[GirlinContempt]

74. The other article was

poorly written, but it was the first thing I found with my google

[Joe Chi Minh]

82. That's what I thought.

[flvegan]

64. Nope. This isn't correct.

They failed to delineate the scenario in which the man heard the woman. Let me elaborate...

On the phone or otherwise "not in person" the man will hear and listen to the woman more, understanding more.

In person, the man will not hear nor understand the woman as much as he would were it not in person.

Why?

Because he's looking at her boobs.

[WCGreen]

65. You are correct, sir....

A man's man you are...

[flvegan]

66. Thank you. I'm going to have a beer now.

I'm pouring if you'd care to have one.

[RevCheesehead]

70. Are you looking at my boobs now?

[flvegan]

71. Huh? What? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention

I was too busy staring at your boobs.

Nice, by the way. :thumbsup:

[thinkingwoman]

68. crap like this

is why people doubt science. :grr:

It's junk science like this that paves the way for idiots to decide that evolution isn't the answer. :eyes:

This has got to be one of the biggest piles of doggie doo passed off as research that I have ever read.

[GirlinContempt]

69. Whats so bad about it?

:shrug:

[thinkingwoman]

80. Please see my response in post #79 nt

edited to correct post number :shrug:

[WindRavenX]

78. um, what's your objection?

It's been long thought that the reason there seems to be "communication" problems between the genders is traced in how our genders behaved very early on, speaking in terms of evolution.
The article is not saying either gender communicates better or worse than the others, just that there are extremely different ways in which we comphrehend language.
I could get into the differences in the evolution of language in men and women, but that would probably bore people...

[thinkingwoman]

79. Um, sounds like junk science to me

I have no "objection" to sound scientific findings. But I have a healthy distrust to sweeping proclamations such as this from one study with zero discussion of the methodology.

"These findings help explain why people who suffer hallucinations usually hear male voices." Huh? Evidence that people who suffer hallucinations "usually" hear male voices? :eyes:

Also:

"It's not the pitch of the woman's voice, but rather the vibration..."

So do men have trouble hearing children's voices too? Are male children's voices like female voices before they change? WTF?

Seriously, this sounds like caffeine is bad for you, good for you, bad for you, good for you junk science. Color me unconvinced that these "findings" have any merit whatsoever.

[GirlinContempt]

84. Well, that was a netscape article.

Not a dissertation on the study itself.
http://www.discover.com/issues/nov-05/rd/men-hear-womens/

Psychiatrist Michael Hunter and fellow researchers at the University of Sheffield in England monitored the brain activity of 12 men as they listened to voice recordings and found they process male voices differently from those of females. Women's voices stimulate an area of the brain used for processing complex sounds, like music. Male voices activate the "mind's eye," a region of the brain used for conjuring imagery.

One reason, Hunter suggests, is that women generally have shorter vocal cords and a smaller larynx, giving them higher-pitched voices. Women's voices may also have more "natural melody," he adds. Qualities like pitch and volume vary more during speech. "There's more prosody in female speech."

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4675103.stm

[thinkingwoman]

87. 12 men? That's it?

I rest my case.

[painted_black]

75. Oh were you talking?

I was daydreaming about cagefighting panda bears

[GirlinContempt]

77. Holy shit

sweet

[Wapsie B]

76. Yes dear. That's right dear.

Anything you say dear. Yes dear. Yes dear.

;-)

[Bruce McAuley]

83. Look, we all KNOW men don't listen to women, the only question is WHY...

I've gotta say it's natural selection.
Men who look at boobs and don't understand what the women are saying are selected FOR("Sure honey, your boobs can make me do anything!").
Men who don't look at boobs and DO understand what the women are saying are selected against("You want me to do WHAT? Are you crazy?"). They might also tend to be gay.
Just my own opinion here.

Bruce

[RedCloud]

85. If the first word is "sex"...

I disagree with your premise wholeheartedly!

[Taxloss]

86. Mmm, uhuh, we should do that maybe.

What?