We can call this process ‘perceptual completion’, and it’s not limited to visual information.

Perceptual
completion shows that all understanding is a ‘best guess’.

A new model of communication

What does all this mean for communication?
To begin with, the most important question we can ask when we are communicating is:
‘What effect am I having?’
How does the information we are giving relate to the other person’s mental models? What meaning do
they attach to our behaviour, our words, gestures and voice?
But we can go further. The pattern-matching model of communication suggests three important
principles.
First, communication is continuous. If we are always updating our understanding, then communication
needs to be continuous to be effective: not a one-off event, like a radio transmission, but a process.
Second, communication is complicated. Whatever we understand, has been communicated. That means
everything we observe: not just the words someone speaks, but the music of