Empathy lets humans pick out the emotions, thoughts, and feelings of others. To do that, humans generally tend to not only focus on the exchange of words, but also a person's facial expressions and different nonverbal cues.

However, a brand new study from the American Psychological Association indicates that you could be trying to do too much. In truth, counting on a combination of vocal and facial cues may not be the only technique for understanding the emotions or intentions of others, the study said.

The new research determined that people who focus completely on listening to some other person's voice, consisting of what the person says and vocal cues like pitch, cadence, pace, and intonation, were capable of higher empathy with that person.

Within the study, the researchers examined more than 1,800 individuals who communicated with each other. A few participants were asked to listen but not look at the others, whilst others had been asked to look but not listen. In a few cases, the participants had been allowed to do both; look and pay attention whilst speaking with each other.

In addition, a number of the participants listened to a recorded interaction between two strangers that was read to them by an automated voice missing the same old emotional inflections of human conversation.

On an average, the study observed that the participants had been capable of interpreting the feelings of their partners better when they listened to the other person and did not pay attention to facial expressions. moreover, paying attention to the automatic voice proved to be the least effective.
 

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