Creating Understanding

Jessica Gasiorek (Ph.D., University of California – Santa Barbara) is an associate professor in the Department of Communicology at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa. Her research addresses communication accommodation, social cognition, intergroup dynamics, and communication about age and aging.R. Kelly Aune (Ph.D., University of Arizona) is a professor in the Department of Communicology at the University of Hawai`i at Mānoa. His research and teaching address message processing, inference-making and implicature, and creating understanding.

• Acknowledgments – Introduction – Communication and Understanding – Conceptualizing Understanding – Premises: Human Cognition and Behavior – Components of Communicating – Creating Understanding – Contextual Factors – Codification – Connections and Implications – Contributions and Future Directions –Index.

“Understanding is often as difficult to define as it is to experience. How do we understand others, and how do we know we have understood them? These are among the provocative questions deftly unpacked in this exciting new volume by Gasiorek and Aune. The authors introduce a process model of how people generate entrainment in their mental representations of interaction. By situating understanding at the core of communication—and by integrating perspectives from philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive psychology—Gasiorek and Aune have reconceptualized the very nature of what it means to understand.”Kory Floyd, Co-editor, The Handbook of Communication Science and Biology; Professor, University of Arizona