TALKING TO A WALL (cc)

You are dining out at a restaurant and the person seated at the table directly behind you is having a conversation while you are trying to converse with your spouse. You find it difficult to pay attention to your "other half" because the person at the other table just keeps talking and talking. Are you male or female?

n a revealing segment, ABC News 20/20 answers this and other questions about how men and women listen differently.

Correspondent Deborah Roberts takes viewers into the home of baseball scout, Al Goldis and his wife of 15 years, Linda. Linda has spent the last 15 years trying to get Al to listen to her -- she claims he always tunes her out. To date, Linda has chalked it up to the fact that Al is on the telephone night and day, focusing on the careers of the young baseball players who count on him. Are the Goldis' communications problems a by-product of Al's demanding job? Is Al simply a "listening burnout," as Linda suggests? Or is Al's brain built to listen to only one thing at a time, and as long as he is focused on his work he will not be able to pay attention to what Linda is saying?

Listening experts like Kitty Watson of Tulane University suggests there are several distinct categories of listeners and that maybe Al is not an insensitive guy -- he's just listening like a man. The impact of this revealing 20/20 investigation may have a profound effect on how women and men communicate -- both at home and on the job

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• VHS Video