I remember numbers by their color (synesthesia) and I guess I’m very analytical. I score something like 3/2/3 on the test.

I can easily understand graphics, but when I read what’s in them first, it doesn’t help at all with the understanding of the picture - I basically have to start over. Similarly, I understand mathematics only if there is no formula involved: as soon as logic is translated into Xes and Ys, it loses all its meaning (which is immensely frustrating). But I can keep very complex models in my head easily. Anyone else have all that?

i think i am more visual, followed by tactile coming in a close second (the “exercising before work” thing is what did me in.)

However, many of the quiz questions confused me because I have almost no ability to “visualize” anything. Ask me what I look like in a particular shirt, and I’ll have to put it on and look in a mirror. Ask me to draw a picture of the house I’ve lived in for years and I’ll get it quite wrong. Ask me whether my best friend who I just spent the weekend with was wearing glasses and there’s a good chance I won’t know. Maps are almost useless to me, although I’m okay with a GPS. I can picture my wife’s face in my head, but not anyone else including my parents.

On the other hand, if we leave off visualizing, I can think of some visual things I’m very good at - reading, spotting patterns, or seeing tiny movements of distant animals while hiking.

On a third hand, I can think of some auditory things too. I can recognize voices far better than faces. I’m a musician. I can discriminate individual parts within a complex piece of music easily.

I guess I’m saying you’re right - I’m probably somewhere around 60% visual and 30% auditory - but it’s interesting to me that many of the stereotypical examples of being visual don’t fit me at all.

@Mardi: your examples fit me too. I understand things much better when I can see them. So I guess there are some very different ways of being a visual processor.

Anyway, thanks for this article! It’s good food for thought.

Great post

good times. they told me to carry a tape recorder with me to class (which personally didn’t help since it was garbled and my hearing was messing with me.)

it’s classified as a learning disability.

There are only five ways to input information into your brain: vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Most people don’t rely on smell as their main form of information processing, and taste falls into the kinesthetic/tactile category along with touch.

A person can have analytic reasoning with all of the styles mentioned in this article. Analytic reasoning is a second stage thought process. The information has to first be received before it can be processed. This article speaks to the ways in which people input information only.

I got 4, 1, 1 so I guess I have a visual lean. I am very aware that I understand something waaaay better if I can see it - for example where I used to work I did some IT support, if someone rang and told me a problem I’d have to go round to their desk and look before I could help them. If my husband reads me an article out of the paper, even though I listen intently I still have no idea what he’s said when he finishes and I annoy him by asking him questions that were answered in the article. So I’m surprised I only got 4 for visual!

I have to conclude that either I’m completely dysfunctional, or there’s a fourth category. (Or the whole thing is bunk.)

For example:

- I can retain a ton of information from reading - I just bought a camera, read the user’s manual cover to cover, and then put it away. Reading is better than listening for me.
- I can’t stand books on tape but I can read fiction very quickly.
- I can memorize phone numbers effortlessly, but there’s no visual component. They’re just numbers in my head.
- Although a graph can be helpful, I understand data better in its raw form.
- I can use a map, but a list of directions is just as helpful.
- When I plan something or brainstorm, I prefer a simple list or outline to a mind map.

I think I’ll make up some criteria like these that peg me as an “abstract ideas and information” processor. Then I’ll feel better about “failing” this test.

gigglechick, how did you get diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder? I just ran across the term a few weeks ago and thought it fit me to a T. I have a dyslexic sister, and I’ve joked for a long time that I have the audio version of her condition.

You have #7 as “I am horrible at remembering jokes”

Awful at it. Here’s the kicker… I have performed stand up comedy since 1999. The way I remember stuff is to actually write it down and have a corresponding image or weird way of drawing the word so I remember it.