How communication works

We can’t expect to have a specific understanding of storytelling without knowing how communication works. Without getting too technical, I’ll try to summarize the main elements of how we are capable of sending and interpreting messages coming from the world.

 

We’ll have to start with how the brain functions.

 

One of the most important cerebral circuits is the one connecting thalamus and amygdala. The amygdala (from the Latin word for almond) is the brain centre of emotions, especially of fear. It is the structure that makes us feel anger or pleasure, the record of the feelings of our life that deposit in long-term memory. It takes care of the rise of emotions and also of their memorization, collaborating with the Hippocampus, which plays a decisive role in learning and in the memory of context. The amygdala is a key structure of our brain because it is located at the border between the reptilian and the limbic region, a crossroads where many essential functions for our existence come together.

The thalamus-amygdala circuit spreads in two alternative directions: the high road and the low road.

 

The low road sees the emotional stimulus arriving from the thalamus directly to the amygdala, allowing it to respond, in the span of approximately 1 second, to a real or perceived menace.

 

The high road sees the thalamus sending the information first to the sensory cortex that regulates and moderates the instinctive reaction of the amygdala […]”

 

Homo Talent, Giorgio Maggi, 2013

 

Simply speaking, the low road is linked to the emotional and archaic brain which dictates quick reactions based on heuristics – these are known reactions/interpretations to given problems and don’t require reasoning. Rather, they are automatic responses based on known behaviors.

The high road requires more time and attention and activates the most recent parts of the brain, like the neo-cortex. The high road the preferred way of taking motivated decisions when there is no specific element of stress involved.

 

Any message or form of communication provides a stimulus that is going to be interpreted by the brain following either the high road or the low road – communication techniques may choose to stimulate one road or the other.

 

Since the roads are physical routes taken by the electrical information of our nervous system, there is no in-between; our brain rapidly elaborates on which road a message is going to take, and then it’s one or the other. This reaction is binary, 0/1.

 

The reasoning may follow, in time, an initial emotional response – but not the other way round.

 

Evocative communication follows this principle: the message produces a stimulus for the emotional brain, calling for a reaction of the low road to apply a known heuristic. All communication that has to deliver a simple message in a short amount of time is evocative. Evocative communication is prone to synthesis – an issue is considered as a whole, without a division of its parts, and in its essence.

 

Descriptive communication usually follows the evocative moment, when there is a chance to do so. It appeals to the high road and calls for reasoning when complex decisions and systems are involved. The central element of descriptive communication is analysis – the reality is represented through the depiction of the elements which compose it.

 

Rhythm and consistency are all qualities of communication. Storytelling is a common technique combining the evocative principle of a protagonist we identify with, and a detailed description of the elements which fall in his way.

 

According to Roman Jakobson, who defined the basics of the Theory of Communication, there are six functions of communication, each stressing one of the 6 elements necessary for mutual understanding.

 

The basic elements of communication are:

1. Context: context is often overlooked but is an important element of communication; it refers to the where and when a specific message is delivered.

2. Message: the message is what we want to say, and should not be confused with the result we might wish to obtain.

3. Sender: the identity of the sender should never be overlooked (which is easy when the sender is a fictional character, a brand, or an institution).

4. Receiver: who we are talking to. Jakobson identifies in the receiver the element which must be stressed in every communication he defines as conative, that is to say, every time we wish to persuade our audience of something.

5. Channel: the channel is the medium used to deliver communication; all channels have their rules. For example, you can’t send video content via radio. A tweet can’t be longer than 140 characters – and so on. These rules may be of technical or of unwritten nature; the unwritten rules are actually the most important since they are a matter of etiquette.

6. Code: the code is, even if not strictly speaking, the language of our message. We always have to check that our code is comprehensible to our audience. Code and context are often strictly intertwined since communities of all kinds tend to elaborate specific codes (of conduct and communication) – specifically, what constitutes a culture.

 

Supporting this theory is the fact that it is applicable to both verbal and non-verbal communication – we may speak different languages and come from different places, but our brains qualify us all as humans, capable of innate understanding of natural communication referring to ancestral messages and needs.