Communication, in the literal sense, is the process of exchanging information. Whether it’s from one computer to another, or from one person to another, the function is clear and straightforward. Computers are designed to deal with finite, factual, and objective data, through input and output functions. Computation of the inputted data are accepted at face value, without scrutinization. What is “six” to one computer is “six” to another. If the data don’t make sense, there is a quick response system “spitting out” untransformable information, of correction, or the program comes to a grinding halt. A computer will say, “This is six and only six. I know what six means. I will respond accordingly”.

With people, however, communication is not always so simple. The information that is being exchanged is most often not finite, factual, or objective, even though each person in the exchange may believe it to be so. Feelings, opinions, and the meanings attributable to facts are most often information that is subjectively true, that is, true for a particular individual. To further confound the matter, they also have the capacity for variation in time and place. What is true today might not have been true yesterday,; what was true there may not be true here; what was true for him may not be true for her.

When people miscommunicate, due to this ”variation error” it is usually because one person hears the communication message as if it were coming from a different person, another time, and/or another place. In psychological  terms, this variation error is called “transference”. What gets garbled is the meaning of the information, and the assumptions that are made about it.

Couples counseling frequently involves a process of correcting skewed assumptions. For example, one person may hear the question, “Did you go to the store yet?, and transform it into, “ Have you done what I asked you to, you lazy, irresponsible( or whatever other pejorative one has conjured up)..?”. Having heard the translation instead of the question, the person might respond with irritation, completely baffling the questioner who had simply wanted to add another item to the shopping list!

The variation error (transference assumption) made in this example is that the one hearing the message acted as if the communicator were his or her (critical) parent, at a different time, and a different place. Misunderstandings such as these can be cleared up easily by checking out one’s assumptions to discover that “Did you go to the store yet?” meant that and only that!