Selective deciphering of a received signal, as taught herein, provides a number of advantages, including greater efficiency through the elimination or at least reduction of wasted decoding cycles. The technique, such as practiced in a user equipment or other wireless communication device, capitalizes on the advantageous recognition herein that the demodulation results obtained for at least some types of received data blocks may be inspected or otherwise evaluated for characteristic patterns that are indicative of whether the data block was or was not ciphered for transmission. That evaluation informs the selective deciphering decision.