How do you figure out if someone is an auditory learner or not using NLP?
In the previous weeks, we covered:
- 6 Ways to Tell if Someone is a Visual Learner Using NLP
- 6 Ways to Tell if Someone is a Visual Learner Using NLP
Way of Speaking
An auditory learner often will use their voice as an instrument. Speak in a beautiful tonality, paying attention to speed, volume, etc.
Eye Movement
A popular topic for many people during the online NLP Foundation training and the live NLP Practitioner is learning how to read eye movements. The relevance here is that an auditory learner will use the brain’s auditory parts more than a visual or kinesthetic person would.
Most of the world’s population:
Their eyes to the side to their left: they hear a sound in their minds-eye they have heard before.
Their eyes move to the side to their right if they are imagining a sound they never heard before or aren’t familiar with.
For a very small amount of people, this is reversed.
The Words They Use
You probably guessed it if you read the previous articles; an auditory person uses auditory words a lot.
For example: talk, silence, quiet, loud, tune-in, rings true, harmony, orchestra, drum, speak, melody, etc.
Sensory Acuity in the Kinesthetic System
Sensory acuity is your ability to notice finer distinctions. An auditory person can hear the finer nuance in sound.
An example that I always use during the NLP training is that of the Flamengo guitar master who got angry at his student because the student had filed their fingernail differently.
Using Their Brain
An auditory person can intensify their feelings not just by external sounds (like music) and the sounds they make on the inside. Their imagination holds sounds, conversations, paired with the tonality. Their emotional world can be entirely auditory.
During NLP training, many exercises are built around these concepts. As well as visual and kinesthetic of course.
Interests (Maybe)
This is not a rule. Auditory learners tend to have interests that involve sound like musicians. Keep in mind though many musicians are actually kinesthetic.
Where they are From (Maybe)
I have noticed that people from countries where the nuance of sound is important in their language that there are more auditory people.
For example:
UK: in the UK your dialect reveals where you are from, but also what “class” you belong to. This is not just by region like in many countries. This is on the other side of the bridge in London for example.
China: in China the meaning of the same word changes based on tonality.
Lastly….
Can you be a combination of various systems? For example, can you be a visual and a kinesthetic learner? How about all 3? That’s entirely possible. You can have a preference for more than one system. You can also, for instance, need a visual cue to access the auditory system.
