AbstractListening and readingare the two major modes for the acquisition of knowledge. This study describes differences in selection (filtering), coding, and organizing materials by these two modes as a function of the complexity of the material. Complexity is defined logically, as well as linguistically and cognitively. For the three sets of materials used here, one excerpt was simple lexically, syntactically, and ideologically. The second was complex lexically and syntactically, but was constructed to contain precisely the same ideas and theme as the first. The third excerpt was simple lexically and ideologically, but was complex syntactically.The data were analyzed linguistically in traditional ways and cognitively for ideas, signals, total cognitive units, for omissions, distortions, and for additions of units. In general, listening, like speaking, seems to be freer from the stimulus and more prone to distort the material it conveys. Like speaking, listening seems to be a looser and less inhibited modality. It seems to be a more direct and less complicated process and a modality that is “more in tune” with thought processes as they occur naturally, than does read