Representational systems (NLP)

[4] Bandler and Grinder also propose that ostensibly metaphorical or figurative language indicates a reference to a representational system such that it is actually literal.

[6] So for example a person that most highly values their visual representation system is able to easily and vividly visualise things, and has a tendency to do this more often than recreating sounds, feelings, etc.

For example, Albert 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.

This observation led to the concept of a preferred representational system,[citation needed] the classification of people into fixed visual, auditory or kinesthetic stereotypes.

and dropped within NLP by the early 1980s,[citation needed] 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.

Due to its importance in human cognitive processing, auditory internal dialogue, or talking in one's head, has its own shorthand: Aid.

The table below is useful for teaching how to identify and access each representational system in context: Logically, these or similar steps must take place somewhere in consciousness in order to cognitively make sense of the question and answer it.

[citation needed] 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.

[citation needed] Thus remembering an actual image (Vr) is associated more with up-left, whilst imagining one's dream home (Vc) tends (again not universally) to be more associated with up-right.

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 movement and language patterns such as sensory predicates.

[citation needed] In an NLP perspective,[weasel words] it is not very important per se whether a person sees or hears some memory.

NLP proponents also found that pacing and leading the various cues tended to build rapport, and allowed people to communicate more effectively.

Although there is some research that supports the notion that eye movement can indicate visual and auditory (but not kinesthetic) components of thought in that moment,[18][improper synthesis?]

the existence of a preferred representational system ascertainable from external cues (an important part of original NLP theory) was discounted by research in the 1980s.

Similarly, The National Research Committee found little support for the influence of PRS as presented in early descriptions of NLP, Frogs into Princes (1979) and Structure of Magic (1975).

However, "at a meeting with Richard Bandler in Santa Cruz, California, on July 9, 1986, the [National Research Committee] influence subcommittee... was informed that PRS was no longer considered an important component of NLP.

(p. 140)[8] The NLP developers, Robert Dilts et al. (1980) [12] proposed that eye movement (and sometimes bodily gesture) correspond to accessing cues for representations systems, and connected it to specific sides in the brain.