Improving communicative understanding: The benefits of global processing

The current research investigated whether a global processing style, affording a focus on the broader context, promotes communicative understanding and, in turn, communicative success. Results confirmed that compared to priming local processing, priming global processing enhanced the deciphering of potentially sarcastic statements of which participants were the receivers (Experiment 1). Experiment 2 extended these findings to oral communication: Global processing increased the correct deciphering of meanings that speakers’ attempted to convey by ambiguous sentences to listeners. Overall ‘seeing the forest instead of the trees’ allowed receivers to attend more perceptively to the larger communicative context, thereby facilitating successful communication.

► We examine the effects of global vs. local processing on communicative understanding.
► Global processing enhances deciphering of potentially sarcastic written sentences.
► Global processing increases correct deciphering of ambiguous spoken sentences.
► Globally processing receivers attend more advantageously to communicative contexts.