Representational systems (also known as modalities and abbreviated to VAKOG or known as the 4-tuple) is a Neuro-linguistic programming model that examines how the human mind processes information. It states that for practical purposes, information is (or can be treated as if) processed through the senses. Thus people say one talks to oneself (the auditory sense) even if no words are emitted, one makes pictures in one's head when thinking or dreaming (the visual sense), and one considers feelings in the body and emotions (known as the kinesthetic sense). Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a set of techniques, axioms and beliefs that adherents use primarily as an approach to personal development. ... NLP modeling (or modelling) is a process used in neuro-linguistic programming to discover and codify patterns of excellence, as demonstrated consistently by top performers in any field ideally via direct experience. ... Mind refers to the collective aspects of intellect and consciousness which are manifest in some combination of thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, and imagination. ... Information as a concept bears a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. ... As if is an extremely common NLP presupposition (technically often called a frame or context reframe). ... Senses are the physiological methods of perception. ... Hearing is the following: Hearing is the sense by which sound is perceived. ... Visual perception is one of the senses, consisting of the ability to detect light and interpret (see) it as the perception known as sight or naked eye vision. ... Proprioception (from Latin proprius, meaning ones own) is the sense of the position of parts of the body, relative to other neighbouring parts of the body. ...

NLP holds it as crucial in human cognitive processing to recognize that the subjective character of experience is strongly tied into, and influenced by, how memories and perceptions are processed within each sense, in the mind. It considers that expressions such as "It's all misty" or "I can't get a grip on it", can often be precise literal unconscious descriptions from within those sensory systems, communicating unconsciously where the mind perceives a problem in handling some mental event. Look up Cognition in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... That all subjective phenomena are associated with a single point of view is called the subjective character of experience. ... The unconscious mind (or subconscious) is the aspect (or puported aspect) of the mind of which we are not directly conscious or aware. ... Unconscious communication (or intuitive) is the transfer of information unconsciously between humans. ...

Within NLP, the various senses in their role as information processors, are known as "representation systems", or modalities. The model itself is known as the VAKOG model (from the initial letters of each of the five senses), or since taste and smell are so closely connected, sometimes as a 4-tuple, meaning its 4 way sensory-based description. A submodality is a structural element of a sensory impression, such as its perceived location, distance, size, or other quality.

Representational systems and submodalities are seen in NLP as offering a valuable therapeutic insight (or metaphor) and potential working methods, into how the human mind internally organizes and subjectively attaches 'meaning' to events. In language, a metaphor (from the Greek: metapherin) is a rhetorical trope defined as a direct comparison between two or more seemingly unrelated subjects. ...

Representational systems within NLP

Overview of representational systems

According to NLP, for many practical purposes mental processing of events and memories can be treated as if performed by the five senses. For example, Einstein credited his discovery of special relativity to a mental visualization strategy of "sitting on the end of a ray of light", and many people as part of decision-making "talk to themselves" in their heads. Einstein redirects here. ... The special theory of relativity was proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein in his article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. ...

The manner in which this is done, and the effectiveness of the mental strategy employed, is stated by NLP to play a critical part in the way mental processing takes place. This observation led to the concept of a "preferred representational system", the classification of people into fixed "visual, auditory or kinesthetic" stereotypes. This idea was later discredited and dropped within NLP by the early 1980s, in favor of the understanding that most people use all of their senses (whether consciously or unconsciously), and that whilst one system may seem to dominate, this is often contextualized - globally there is a balance that dynamically varies according to circumstance and mood. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The 1980s decade refers to the years from 1980 to 1989, inclusive, informally sometimes including the years 1979, 1990 and 1991. ...

NLP asserts that for most circumstances and most people, three of the five senses seem to dominate in mental processing:

• The visual sense - sight, mental imagery, spatial awareness
• The auditory sense - sound, speech, dialog, "white noise"
• The kinesthetic (or proprioceptive) sense - somatic feelings in the body, temperature, pressure, and also emotion.

The other two senses, gustatory (taste) and olfactory (smell), which are closely associated, often seem to be less significant in general mental processing, and are often considered jointly as one. For other uses of the term white noise, see white noise (disambiguation). ... Proprioception (from Latin proprius, meaning ones own and perception) is the sense of the position of parts of the body, relative to other neighbouring parts of the body. ... The term somatic refers to the body. ...

For this reason, one often sees the term VAK in NLP reference texts, to signify these three primary representational systems, as well as the term 4-tuple (or VAKOG) if the author wishes to include all senses including taste/smell. The same term is also known as First Access (John Grinder)^[1], or primary experience (Freud). In mathematics, a tuple is a finite sequence of objects, that is, a list of a limited number of objects. ...

Notation and strategies

In documenting mental strategies and processing by the senses, NLP practitioners often use a simple shorthand for different modalities, with a letter indicating the repreentation system concerned, and often, a superscript to indicate how that system is being used. Three key aspects are commonly notated: The representation system being used (visual/V, auditory/A, kinesthetic/K, and occasionally, O/G), whether the direction of attention is internal ⁽ⁱ⁾ or external ^(e), and whether the event is a recollection of an actual past event ^(r) or construction of an imaginary event ^(c). Due to its importance in human cognitive processing, auditory internal dialogue, or talking in one's head, has its own shorthand: A^id. A superscript is a number, figure, or symbol that appears above the normal line of type, at the right or left of another symbol or text. ...

Putting these together, this is a very simplified example of some steps which might actually be involved in replying to a simple question such as "Do you like that dress?":

Step	Activity	Notation	What it's being used for
1	auditory external	Ae	Hear the question
2	visual internal	Vi	picture to oneself the meaning of the question
3	visual external	Ve	look at the dress
4	visual internal constructed	Vic	create a mental image of the dress worn by the person
5	kinesthetic internal	Ki	get an internal feeling from looking at it
6	auditory internal dialog	Aid	ask oneself 'Do I like that impression?'
7	auditory external	Ae	reply

Logically, these or similar steps must take place somewhere in consciousness in order to cognitively make sense of the question and answer it. A sequence of this kind is known in NLP as a strategy - in this case, a functional outline of the strategy used by the mind in answering that question. In a similar way, the process leading to a panic attack of the form "I see the clock, ask myself where the kids are, imagine everything that could be happening and feel scared" might be notated as having a subjective structure: V^e → A^id → V^ic → Kⁱ, signifying that an external sight leads to internal dialog (a question), followed by internal and constructed images, leading to a feeling.

It's worth noting that usually, some of these steps (often the most important ones) occur extremely fast, and out of conscious awareness. For example, few people would ordinarily be aware that between question and even considering an answer, there must be steps in which the mind interprets and contextualizes the question itself, and steps which explore various possible strategies to be used to obtain an answer and select one to be followed. The mental occurrence of these steps is often identified by deduction following skilled observation, or by careful inquiry, although their presence is usually self-apparent to the person concerned once noticed.

Eye movements ("accessing cues")

Grinder and Bandler identified pattern of relationship between the sensory-based language people use in general conversation, and for example, their eye movements (known as "eye accessing cues). ^[2]

A common (but not universal) style of processing in the West is shown in the attached chart, where "eye flickers" in specific directions often seem to tie into specific kinds of internal (mental) processing. NLP also suggests that that sometimes (again not universally), such processing is associated with sensory word use, so for example a person asked what they liked about the beach, may flick their eyes briefly in some characteristic direction (visual memory access, often upwards), and then also use words that describe it in a visual sense ("the sea looked lovely", and so on). Likewise asked about a problem, someone may look in a different direction for a while (kinesthetic access, typically downwards) and then look puzzled and say "I just can't seem to get a grip on things". Taken together, NLP suggests such eye accessing cues (1) are idiosyncratic and habitual for each person, and (2) may form significant clues as to how a person is processing or representing a problem to themselves unconsciously.

The most common arrangement for eye accessing cues in a right-handed person.

Note: - NLP does not say it is 'always' this way, but rather that one should check whether reliable correlations seem to exist for an individual, and if so what they are

Common (but not universal) Western layout of eye accessing cues: Image File history File links Eye_accessing_cues. ... Image File history File links Eye_accessing_cues. ...

• Upwards -- Visual (V) -- "I can imagine the big picture"
• Level (left/right) -- Auditory (A) -- "Let's tone down the discussion"
• Down -- Kinesthetic (K) -- "I can grasp a hold of it"
• Down-left Auditory internal dialogue (A^id) -- talking to oneself inside

Eye movements to the left or right for many people seem to indicate if a memory was . Thus remembering an actual image (V^r) is associated more with up-left, whilst imagining one's dream home (V^c) tends (again not universally) to be more associated with up-right.

Subjective awareness

When we think about the world, or about our past experiences, we represent those things inside our heads. For example, think about the holiday you went on last year. Did you see a picture of where you went, tell yourself a story about what you did, feel the sun on your back and the wind in your hair? Can you bring to mind the smell of your favourite flower or the taste of a favourite meal?

The use of the various modalities can be identified based by learning to respond to subtle shifts in breathing, body posture, accessing cues, gestures, eye movements and language patterns such as sensory predicates. ^[3][4]

Uses

NLP's interest in the senses is not so much in their role as bridges to the outside world, but in their role as internal channels for cognitive processing and interpretation. In an NLP perspective, it is not very important per se whether a person "sees" or "hears" some memory. By contrast, NLP views it as potentially of great importance for the same person, to discover that some auditory sounds presented almost out of consciousness along with the memory, may be how the brain presents to consciousness, and how consciousness 'knows', whether this is a heart-warming pleasant memory, or a fearsome phobic one.

Representational systems are also relevant since some tasks are more optimally performed within one representational system than by another. For example, within education, spelling is better learned by children who have unconsciously used a strategy of visulatization, than an unconscious strategy of phonetical "sounding out". When taught to visualize, previously poor spellers can indeed be taught to improve. NLP proponents also found that pacing and leading the various cues tended to build rapport, and allowed people to communicate more effectively. Certain studies suggest that using similar representational systems to another person can help build rapport^{[citation needed]}, whilst other studies have found that merely mimicking or doing so in isolation is perceived negatively.^{[citation needed]} Rapport is one of the most important features or characteristics of unconscious human interaction. ...

It's also notworthy that a dysfunction such as schizophrenia is in principle just as 'structured' and as capable of 'modeling' as any positive skill, and much valuable information can be learned about how certain patients 'do' key processes in their illnesses by exploring how they use their senses and the strategies employed. This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ... NLP modeling (or modelling) is a process used in neuro-linguistic programming to discover and codify patterns of excellence, as demonstrated consistently by top performers in any field ideally via direct experience. ...

Some exercises in NLP training involve learning how to observe and respond to the various cues in real time. ^{[citation needed]}

The 'Preferred Representational System'

The NLP developers, Robert Dilts et al. ^[3]proposed that eye movements (and sometimes gestures) correspond to accessing cues for representations systems, and connected it to specific regions in the brain. ^{[citation needed]}

Based partly upon this, certain stereotypes were proposed, for example that "visual" people were stereotypically thin, talked fast, spoke in a higher pitched voice, whereas "kinesthetic" people were of broader physical build, spoke slower and with a deeper timbre. These hypothesized body types were based in part upon generalized observation, and also connected to emerging NLP theory. Thus for example, "visual" people were said to typically speak faster because vision is a very fast medium for thinking compared to the somatic sense, and "kinesthetic" people were said to have a deeper tone and slower speech and broader body type because they were more aware of the body's feelings and usually spoke from the chest rather than the larynx. The "auditory" type was usually said to be somewhere in betwen in most areas. In music, timbre, also timber (French, IPA /tæmbər/ as in the first two syllables of tambourine), is the quality of a musical note or sound which distinguishes different types of sound production or musical instruments. ... The pharynx (plural pharynx), or voicebox, is an organ in the neck of mammals involved in protection of the trachea and sound production. ...

Sharpley ^[5]found little support for individuals to have a "preferred" representational system (PRS), whether in the choice of words or direction of eye movements, and the concept of a "preferred" representation system (PRS), and categorization of people "as" visual, auditory or kinesthetic, has been dropped within NLP,^{[citation needed]} in favor of a view that individuals often use any or all representational systems, both in isolation and in combination.

See also

• Neuro-linguistic programming
• Sensory systems
• Submodality (NLP)

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is a set of techniques, axioms and beliefs that adherents use primarily as an approach to personal development. ... (See also sense) A sensory system is a part of the nervous system that consists of sensory receptors, neural pathways, and those parts of the brain responsible for processing the information. ...

External links

• Visual Auditory Kinesthetic

Notes and References

• Bandler's Using Your Brain for a Change (Real People Press, 1985)
• Seki's Inner Vision: an Exploration of Art and Brain, OUP, 2000.

1. ^ Grinder, John & Carmen Bostic St Clair (2001.). Whispering in the Wind. CA: J & C Enterprises, 127, 171, 222, ch.3, Appendix. -.
2. ^ Bandler, Richard & John Grinder (1979). [- Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming]. Moab, UT: Real People Press, p.15,24,30,45,52.. -.
3. ^ ^a b Dilts, Robert B, Grinder, John, Bandler, Richard & DeLozier, Judith A. (1980). [. Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Volume I - The Study of the Structure of Subjective Experience]. Meta Publications, 1980. ., pp.3-4,6,14,17. ..
4. ^ Dilts, Robert B, DeLozier, Judith A (2000). Encyclopedia of Systemic Neuro-Linguistic Programming and NLP New Coding. NLP University Press, p.75, 383, 729, 938-943, 1003, 1300, 1303. ISBN 0-9701540-0-3.
5. ^ Sharpley C.F. (1987). "Research Findings on Neuro-linguistic Programming: Non supportive Data or an Untestable Theory". Communication and Cognition Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1987 Vol. 34, No. 1: 103-107,105.