Eye Accessing Cues & Representational Systems — What They Mean & How to Use Them
Eye Accessing Cues in NLP relates to the various eye movements in certain directions that indicate whether an individual has primarily visual, auditory or kinaesthetic thinking. Now you’re wondering how is that important?
NLP (Neurolinguistics Programming) teaches that people have different representational systems, even though we might leverage all 3 different categories, typically there’s one representational system that is our primary one. That’s the one we use most often when we’re thinking, recalling past events or communicating. Knowing your own representational system and others representational systems will allow you to communicate with them better, and as an add-on you will be able to spot a lier.
One way of determining people’s representational system to optimize communication with them is through eye accessing cues as well as listening to their choice of words.
What are the different representational systems defined in NLP?
Visual
Visual people they rely heavily on visuals to understand, deliver and communicate. You’ll notice people who use visual representation systems to use top right to recall information and top left to construct information.
You can also identify visual people through their choice of words, visual people will typically say things like:
- I see what you mean
- I can’t imagine it
- Do you see my point?
Auditory
Auditory people rely heavily on audio for processing and delivering information. You’ll notice people who use auditory representation system to use middle right to recall information and middle left to construct information.
You’ll notice auditory people to use phrases such as:
- I hear you
- Sounds like a plan
- I like the sound of that
Kinaesthetic
Kinaesthetic people are people who rely on touch and feel as a representation system. People with kinaesthetic representation system will often look low left when expressing themselves.
You’ll also notice they express themselves by saying things like:
- This feels right
- This idea doesn’t sit well with me
- I feel that..
Auditory Digital
Similar to the definition of boolean in IT, an auditory digital person is someone who sees things as black and white, or 0 or 1 (i.e. digital). Those individuals can be identified through their eye accessing cue being lower right.
You’ll also notice, they’ll often say things like:
- This doesn’t make sense
- It’s either X or Y
How to use representational systems?
Understanding your own representational system and others allows you to better understand how you learn, process information, and communicate with others, and by extension allows you to optimize your communication based on your audience representational system. It’s your job to make sure that you’re understood, by leveraging this knowledge you’re increasing your chances of delivering your message effectively to your partner, your boss or team mates.
The best way to get good at this is to practice, practice, practice — when people are talking look at them instead of your phone, and listen (like really listen!). Try it with your friends to start and you’ll see how fun it is to see how they almost all react the same way.
Things to consider:
- There are exceptions to the rule — left-handed people’s sides are reversed, so a visual right-handed person would look top right for recalling information while a left handed person would look top left for recalling information.
Tip: Ask people an easy non-suspicious question to start and gauge where they’re at by asking something like “what did you to today?” and see where they look to determine if they’re right-handed or left-handed if you don’t already know.
Summary of Eye Accessing Cues and How to read them (as you’re looking at your subject):
- Visual recall (top right)
- Audio recall (middle right)
- Internal Dialog or calculations (lower right)
- Visual constructed (top left);
- Audio constructed (middle left);
- Tactile/Feelings (lower left as you look at them).
Books and References:
