Noise (in communication process)

One of the components of communication process. It refers to the extraneous factors that create unplanned distortion or interference in the communication process. It may be errors or problems that occur in encoding of the message, distortions in the transmitting media. Noise may also occur because the fields of experience of the sender and receiver do not match. Lack of common ground may result in improper encoding of the message— using a sign, symbol, or words that are unfamiliar or have different meaning to the receiver. The more common ground there is between the sender and the receiver, the less likely it is this type of noise will occur.