Barriers to Communication Questions and Answers

Answer: C

A semantic barrier exists when the receiver fails to understand the meaning.

Semantic barriers arise from the meaning of words and symbols: jargon, ambiguous words, words with several meanings, poor translation or differences in language. The message may arrive perfectly clearly, yet the receiver attaches a different meaning to it or none at all.

A fully attentive receiver and a loud, clear signal describe the absence of psychological and physical barriers, and a message that is flawlessly understood is the opposite of a barrier, so none of the other options describes a semantic barrier.

Answer: A

The barrier lies in an individual's coding ability.

To transmit an idea, the sender has to encode thoughts into words or other symbols, and the receiver has to decode them back into meaning. Communication models such as Berlo's SMCR list communication skills, the ability to encode and decode, as a basic factor in the source and the receiver. If either party lacks the vocabulary, clarity or skill to code the content, the cognitive message does not get across, however willing both are.

Resolution and anticipation are not standard barriers to the transfer of meaning, and societal status affects how freely people communicate across a hierarchy rather than the transmission of the cognitive content itself.

Answer: C

The failure comes from marginal listening instead of active listening.

In Chinese whispers, each player passes a story on after hearing it once, and the story is distorted at every step. Marginal listening is half-hearted listening, in which the listener catches only parts of the message and fills the rest from guesswork. Active listening means full attention, checking understanding and retaining the details, which is what the players would need to reproduce the story completely.

Empathetic and sensitive listening are attentive forms that focus on the speaker's feelings; they would not by themselves cause the details of a story to be lost, so the other two pairings do not explain the failure, and 'None of the above' is wrong because marginal listening does.

Answer: B

A semantic problem relates to the meaning associated with words.

Semantics is the study of meaning. Semantic barriers to communication arise when sender and receiver attach different meanings to the same word or symbol, for example through technical jargon, words with several meanings, ambiguous phrasing or poor translation, so that the message is understood differently from what was intended.

The sender's behaviour belongs to personal or psychological barriers, and the speaker's intention concerns motive rather than the meaning of words, so those options are wrong; 'None of the above' is ruled out because meaning is exactly what semantics deals with.

Answer: C

The correct matching is a-IV, b-I, c-II, d-III.

• Filtering is a sender manipulating information so it looks more favourable to the receiver (IV).
• Information overload is when information exceeds a person's processing capacity (I).
• A semantic barrier is language-related: words and symbols understood differently (II).
• Communication apprehension is undue anxiety about communicating (III).

Option B swaps information overload with communication apprehension and semantic barriers.

Answer: D

Inattentiveness of the receiver affects the effectiveness of communication.

A receiver who is not paying attention does not decode the message fully or correctly, so the message does not have its intended effect. This is a psychological barrier to communication on the receiver's side.

The sender, the message and the medium are unchanged by the receiver's attention; what suffers is whether the communication succeeds.

Answer: C

Cultural difference may affect the effectiveness of communication.

Sender and receiver interpret words, gestures and tone through their own cultural background. When these differ, the message may be decoded in a way the sender did not intend, which makes cultural difference a common barrier to effective communication.

The message, the medium and the feedback are individual elements of the process; the cultural gap affects the overall outcome, which is how effectively meaning is shared.

Answer: D

The element is called noise.

In models of communication, noise is any interference that distorts or blocks the message between sender and receiver. It may be physical (loud sounds), technical (a poor connection), psychological (preoccupation) or semantic (unclear words).

Feedback and the message are essential parts of communication, not barriers, and projection is a psychological defence, not the term for this element.

Reducing noise, for example by speaking clearly, choosing a quiet setting and checking understanding through feedback, makes communication more effective.