Tag Archive for Mediums

How People Learn

Turn the music down, she's a visual learner!

Turn the music down, she’s a visual learner!

There are three main ways in which people process new information. They are auditory (spoken words), kinesthetic (touch) and visual (images). When presenting information it is important to identify which methods are most suitable because every person absorbs information in a different way and so prefers to learn through specific mediums. It is also important to realize your own unique tastes so you can satisfy your own needs and learn more effectively.

Auditory learners, those who learn primarily through spoken words make up about twenty five percent of the population. This group of people prefers to hear the information through oral presentation, lectures and speeches. Oral learners will be found playing music frequently, or will leave a television or radio in the background to stimulate them. Other oral learners will be distracted by sound so they instead run white noise machines or play nature or ocean sounds to sooth themselves. You can also identify auditory learners because they will say things like “That rings a bell”, “I hear you” or “That doesn’t sound right”.

Visual learners account for around thirty five percent of the population. They will prefer charts, maps, graphs, images and photographs. You can identify a visual learner because they will say things like “I can see that”, “I just don’t see how that’s possible” or “yes, I see, that makes perfect sense”. Obviously having at least some visual props will assist any presentation but if you are looking to impress a visual learner, the more the better.

Kinesthetic learners represent the remaining forty percent and they prefer to learn mainly by touch. They prefer to learn by doing rather than simply watching and so they take poorly to lecture situations and can exhibit a desire to move. They often want to take action before learning, and jump right in, so to speak. Kinesthetic learners can be restless or hyperactive when under-stimulated physically. These types of learner will prefer dioramas, physical models, role-playing, or reenactments. Kinesthetic learners prefer test driving ideas or building things as they learn about them. We can identify kinesthetic learners as they will often say things like “Let’s bounce that idea around”, “I can’t quite grasp that idea”, “I’m having trouble feeling that” or “Yeah I can warp my fingers around that one.” More often than not, people will learn through every channel, despite having a more preferred method. Therefore, to teach effectively, it’s important to use as many of the teaching techniques as possible, not only so you can involve the greatest percentage of people, but so that you can use more of everyone’s senses making a much more diverse and powerful presentation.

What Is Cold Reading?

Cold reading is a technique fortune tellers use to convince their audience that they know much more then they really do and that they know it from scratch, no prewritten cue cards here. Rather they read their cues on the fly such as clothing or fashion, gender, age, race or ethnicity, hairstyle and posture to draw information about a person, although they never tell the audience as much. The cold readers find themselves to be psychics, mediums and fortune tellers of the profession.

I’m always struck by those who think that some form of extrasensory perception is happening simply because readers don’t rely on spoken words to discover ‘truths’ about a person. In this case ‘truths’ is a bit of a stretch and not totally accurate, ‘leads’ is probably a better word. I suppose, the magic happens because the audience really is not aware of all the information available to the reader from simple observation. With a few additional cues derived from religion, place of origin and education, of which the reader can simply ask, or even the manner in which they speak, a lot can be learned about a person and quickly. As the cold reader moves forward with generalization and high probabilities guesses, he or she (usually a she, as women are more perceptive and so make better psychics), they navigate through a formulaic serious of potent topics before reaching conclusions. They pick up on cues emitted from their subjects to verify correct pathways and can reinforce certain chance connections and guesses.

Other basic procedures used by readers include techniques such as “shotgunning” allegedly used by mediums such as Sylvia Browne and John Edward where the reader quickly offers a huge quantity of general information to an entire audience hoping something will stick. General information used in reading is called the “rainbow ruse”, where a phrase is advanced that covers a large array of possibilities. The rainbow ruse might include statements that are not quantifiable or so general that it can apply to nearly everyone. The ruse can include statements such as “You are most often cooperative and pleasant, but when someone does you wrong, you are easy to anger and hold a grudge.” Does that not describe everyone you know?