NLP Eye Accessing Cues
Last week we described the basics of NLP Representational Systems and how to identify how another person is representing their own internal model of the world. This week we are going to refine this a bit more by showing how the eyes reveal important information and and we'll follow that up with an article that will really explain how to put all this information together into useful applications.
Eye Accessing Cues
In the early days of NLP, Bandler and Grinder noticed that people who were visual tended to look up when accessing their thoughts; auditory people tended to look sideways; and kinesthetic people tended to look down. These are somewhat generalizations, but are surprisingly accurate. In addition they noticed that if you ask someone a question that requires that they acccess an image (e.g. "What did your first car look like?") about how something looks that they are remembering they will look to a different side than if you ask them to "make up" up an image (e.g. What would George Bush look like in a mini-dress and stiletto heels?"). So for the first question, it's quite likely (better than average chance) the person will look up to their left (at least for a moment), but for the second question they will look up and to their right. The same basic pattern applies for accessing auditory representations. It's useful to distinguish between what is called "Auditory Analog" and "Auditory Digital" as well. Digital refers to words and analog refers to anything else you would hear including tones, tempo, pitch, etc. So when someone is generating internal self-talk they will tend to access Auditory Digital (down to the left).
If you say to someone, "So how do you feel about that?" They are likely to look down to their right. When somone is looking for the words to describe something (Auditory digital) they are likely to look down and to their left.
The directions described above are for someone "normally organized". This simply means that most people look left for remembered and right for construction. Other people will be opposite and look right for remembered and left for construction (informal estimates are that about 90% of the population is normally organized). This pattern appears to be highly consistent and independent of culture. John Grinder has noted that the only exception he's aware of is the Basques who don't follow a readily identifiable pattern.
It's worth a reminder at this point that these are generalizations. You should test all of this and learn to notice for yourself the relationship between questions and how other people access their representations. A way to calibrate is to ask a series of questions relevant to the context you are in. So if you are in real estate and want to calibrate you might ask a colleague :
Q: Remind me, what is the color of that house we have listed on Elm Street?
This question already suggests that you want the person to remember, and then the question you ask presupposes a visual response (for the vast majority of people). You may notice as you ask questions that some people will continue to stay focused directly ahead and their pupils may dilate rather than moving horizontally or vertically. This usually indicates accessing information visually.
The chart below shows the eye accesses for people who are normally organized.
NLP Eye Accessing Cues
So what use is this? First and foremost, once you are aware of how people around you are representing their world you can utilize that information to communicate more effectively. In upcoming articles we will be building on eye accessing cues and explain how to use them in many interesting ways. For now we recommend learning the basics of noticing what is going on and learning to ask good questions that let you isolate what is happening. That brings us to the exercises:
Exercise 1: Write out 3-5 questions that would let you calibrate the access (like the real estate example we gave above) for each of the 3 major representational systems: visual, auditory, kinesthetic.
Exercise 2: Use the questions you have written out with at least 10 people over the next week and see what you can notice.
Exercise 3: Watch people talk in a natural setting and see how people access information with their eyes.
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