awareness

(noun)

The state or ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, objects, or sensory patterns. In this level of consciousness, sense data can be confirmed by an observer without necessarily implying understanding.

Related Terms

Examples of awareness in the following topics:

  • Situational and Environmental Context

    • The key then, to understanding your context is to develop a habit of situational awareness.
    • Situational awareness refers to one's perception of their environment and situation around them on a moment by moment basis.
    • In being situationally aware, you can anticipate changes to your environment.
    • Cultivating this skill (and it does take time and a keen awareness of your surroundings) is especially helpful when your context may shift or change in subtle or major ways, or in an instant.

  • Hold the Audience's Attention

    • To hold the audience's attention, consider their readiness to perceive, the selection of stimuli, and how to maintain current awareness.
    • To hold the attention of the audience, a public speaker should consider three important aspects of the process of perception: readiness to perceive, selection of certain stimuli for focus of attention, and state of current awareness.
    • To change the current state of the audience's awareness and re-gain their attention, try the following:

  • Gender Bias

    • Just as you want to be cognizant and aware of the cultural biases that exist between both you and your audience, you'll want to be equally aware of how gender bias may factor into your speech.

  • Types and Elements of Credibility

    • Another approach is to quote prominent figures in your field, demonstrating an awareness of the issues and conversations that are current trends in that field.

  • Techniques for Accepting Criticism

    • Even if you do not agree with the criticism, others may be seeing something that you are not even aware of.

  • Signaling the End of Your Speech and Managing Q&A

    • This way, they are clearly aware you are coming to the close of your speech.
    • This means you must be aware of things like giving all audience members a chance to ask questions, not spending too much time on any one question, and not engaging in hostile rhetoric with your audience.

  • Causes of Poor Listening

    • Both listeners and speakers should be aware of these kinds of impediments and work to eliminate or mitigate them.
    • To avoid this obstruction, listeners should be aware of these biases and focus on the substance, rather than the style of delivery, or the speaker's voice and appearance.

  • Analyzing the Who, Why, and Where

    • You should especially be aware of your unique world-view and biases in your speech because they may negatively impact people of different cultures, ages, genders, etc.

  • Religion

    • Of course, you not required to accept or embrace other religions but simply to be aware of and sensitive to them.

  • Defining Emotional Appeal

    • From pictures of starving children to motivate people to give to charity to using them as any excuse to ban things that children shouldn't even be aware of (e.g., guns), they are repeatedly paraded in front of audiences to appeal to their emotional protective instincts, often overriding anyone's sense of rationality .