Three studies that illustrate the assumptions of cognitive communication theory suggest that the focus of the communication discipline should be on the perceptions and interpretations that the communicant brings to a given interactive situation. These perceptions or cognitions can determine how a person will speak or act as a result of encountering other speakers or actors. Additionally, the degree of effectiveness with which one may communicate or apply communication strategies depends on his or her cognitive complexity.
Delia's study of credibility, for example, begins with a review of literature that he concludes is inconclusive. He says measures of credibility have been confused with measures of the whole persona of an individual, with the result that conclusions of much research bear the weight of inconclusive complexity or simply confusion itself. Accordingly, Delia wanted to go beyond the establishment of additional measurement factors and examine the theoretical basis for the concept of credibility itself. In so doing, he returns to the Aristotelian concept of ethos as noted in the Rhetoric, "the dominant mode of rhetorical proof, [consisting of] a listener's evaluation of a speaker's intelligence, character, and good will" (2:361). The focus of such a study would not be to look at the rating scales of evaluation, but at the evaluative process itself; in other words, on what the listener brings to the experience of listening.
The principal purpose of Delia's research is set forth as an overview of "the general character of impression formation processes within the framework of a constructivist epistemology and, then, [offer] a constructivist reformulation of the concept of credibility" (2:366). Significantly, this is a theoretical argument and not a report of results of a study of a quantified sample. What Delia wanted to study was the point of view from which measures of credibility are taken, not the measures themselves...