How do you learn? Are you a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner?

Don't limit yourself by believing that you're "just a visual person." Everyone uses all three learning modalities, but generally there is one modality that is more dominant or that fosters better concentration. Of course, sensory modalities are only part of the story. For instance, gender and culture play roles in a person's ways of knowing.

The literature describes three different sensory modalities - visual, auditory, and kinesthetic - that we use when learning and how knowledge of these modalities can be applied in everyday life.

Knowing which is your dominant modality can help you to assimilate information and communicate information better. As you will see, language plays a role in the detective work when trying to figure out what your dominant modality is.

Visually dominant people may frequently say things like,"I see what you're saying." They tend to learn best by reading or watching. "Experience is processed through sight and visual images" (Markova,34). 

Auditorily dominant people may frequently say, "I hear what your mean." They may learn best through being told or by listening to a lecture. "Experience is processed through words and sounds" (Markova, 35).

Kinesthetically dominant folks might frequently say, "It just feels right to me." They take very seriously the cliché, "actions speak louder than words." They may learn best by doing, rather than watching. Athough, watching while doing can only enhance the learning process as the following example shows.

An example of how a teacher can teach the alphabet through all three learning modalities:
Visual: Shows pictures, powerpoint slides, or video of the alphabet

Audtory: Has the students sing the alphabet

Kinesthetic: Has the students act out the letters

This cartoon illustrates how a teacher can teach to all three of the sensory learning modalities. Click the individual students to see their dominant modality. 

Armstrong, T. (1993). Seven kinds of smart. New York: Penguin Group.
Linden, A. (1998). Mindworks. New York: Berkley.
O'Connor, J. (1995). Introducing NLP. San Francisco: Thorsons.
Vos, J. & Dryden, G. (1994). The learning revolution. Torrance: Jalmar Press.

Renee Carson, graduate student
SDSU Educational Technology