When signs and symbols are interpreted by a participant in the communication process, is said to have occurred.

Decoding

Explanation:

Two parts are very important in every communication, Encoding, and Decoding.

For communication to take place, the message is encoded for privacy and/or security reasons and decoded by the receiver.

Encoding refers to the use of specific symbols and signs into the message that is being transferred, this is to ensure that the intended receiver is the only one that can decode the message over a communication channel.

Decoding in communication implies that encrypted or encoded messages are interpreted, analyzed and understood for efficient communication.

For instance, Mark can send Alice an encoded email containing a smiley sad face and a crying face. Alice can immediately decode the message to mean that Mark is sad and work with that information.

From my unpleasant example, Alice decoded the message that was encoded by Mark.