Successful communication between human beings, either within a culture or between cultures, requires that the message and meaning intended by the speaker is correctly received and interpreted by the listener. Sustainable error free communication is rare, and in most human interactions there is some degree of miscommunication.

The message sent from speaker to listener contains a wide array of features, such as words, grammar, syntax, idioms, tone of voice, emphasis, speed, emotion, and body language, and the interpretation requires the listener to attend to all of these features, while at the same time constructing an understanding of the speaker's intentions, emotions, politeness, seriousness, character, beliefs, priorities, motivations, and style of communicating. In addition, the listener must also evaluate whether the utterance is a question or a statement and how and to what extent a statement matters to the speaker (Maltz and Borker, 1982).

Each of the components of the communication provides one or more kind of information. Words convey abstract logic, tone of voice conveys attitudes, emotions and emphases, and body language communicates "requests versus commands, the stages of greeting, and turn-taking" (Schneller 1988, p. 154).

Even assuming that words and body language were perfectly understood, there is more information necessary to successfully communicate across cultures. For example, in some countries it is polite to refuse the first few offers of refreshment: "Many foreign guests have gone hungry because their U.S. host or hostess never presented a third offer" (Samovar and Porter 1988, p. 326). In understanding communication, a listener must pay attention not just to what is said and when, but also to how many times something is said, under what circumstances, and by whom. Given all this complexity, the reason human communication can often succeed is because people learn how to communicate and understand through interacting with one another throughout their lives. Therefore, it is no surprise that culture and socialization are critical determinants of communication and interpretation. "The entire inference process, from observation through categorization is a function of one's socialization" Detweiler (1975). Socialization influences how input will be received, and how perceptions will be organized conceptually and associated with memories.