Interference Interference, also called noise, can come from any source. "Interference is anything that blocks or changes the source's intended meaning of the message." For example, if you drove a car to work or school, chances are you were surrounded by noise. Car horns, billboards, or perhaps the radio in your car interrupted your thoughts, or your conversation with a passenger. Psychological noise is what happens when your thoughts occupy your attention while you are hearing, or reading, a message. Imagine that it 4:45 pm. and your boss, who is at a meeting in another city, e-mails you asking for last month's sales figures, an analysis of current sales projections, and the sales figures from the same month for the past five years. You may open the e-mail, start to read, and think, "Great-no problem-I have those figures and that analysis right here in my computer." You fire off a reply with last month's sales figures and the current projections attached. Then, at five o'clock, you turn off your cornputer and go home. The next morning, your boss calls on the phone to tell you he was inconvenienced because you neglected to include the sales figures from the previous years. What was the problem? Interference by thinking about how you wanted to respond to your boss's message, you prevented yourself from reading attentively enough to understand the whole message. Interference can come from other sources, too. Perhaps you are hungry, and your attention to your current situation inte with your ability to listen. Maybe the office is hot and stuffy. you were a member of an audience listening to an executive speech, how could If this impact your to listen and participate? Noise interferes with normal encoding and ability decoding of the message carried by the channel between source and receiver. Not all noise bad, but noise interferes with the communication pr For example, your cell phone ringtone may be a welcome noise to you, but it may interrupt the communication process class and bother your classmates.