Listening vs. Hearing

I recently read a passage by Madelyn Burley-Allen that compares listening to hearing.

When we think about listening, we tend to assume it is basically the same as hearing; this is a dangerous misconception because it leads us to believe effective listening is instinctive. As a result, we make little effort to learn or develop listening skills and unknowingly neglect a vital communication function, thereby denying ourselves educational development and increased self-awareness (p.3).

While I believe her intent was to interpret “hearing” as a passive sensory capability based on physical reception of auditory waves that are sent to the brain for interpretation, I can’t help feel that the mark was missed in this paragraph.

I believe that a better employment of the term “hearing” is to depict it as a level of listening. Bear with me here…A person can LISTEN to another person, but do they always HEAR what it is that they are saying? Do they comprehend both the explicit and implicit meaning of that which they are listening to? If so, then they could be said to “hear” what the other is saying.

I couldn’t help thinking about the movie “White Men Can’t Jump” where Wesley Snipes character, Sidney Deane says to Woody Harrelson’s character, Billy Hoyle, “Look man, you can listen to Jimi [referring to the musician, Jimi Hendrix] but you can't hear him. There's a difference man. Just because you're listening to him doesn't mean you're hearing him” (Shelton, 1992). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HauMNRzhyJQ

How do you interpret hearing vs. listening?

Cited

Allen, M. (1995). Listening: The forgotten skill - A Self-Teaching Guide (2nd ed.). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. p.3.

Shelton, R. (Director). (1992). White Men Can't Jump [Motion picture]. USA: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.