The split between inner and outer experience

Originally published to eBridge on Sunday 24 June 2012

How much of what we hear is truly an auditory experience alone? Through our absorption, since childhood, of the alphabet and its detached, abstract, visual representation of sounds, we cannot help but interpret that which we hear in visual terms. So ingrained is our use of this representation of sound that we would be hard-pressed to recognise that we do it at all. 'Prolonged mimesis of the alphabet and its fragmenting properties produced a new dominant mode of perception and then of culture' (McLuhan & McLuhan, 1988).

Aside from the concept of 'meshing' which Pashler et al. (2008) have disproved, it seems to me that the whole concept of splitting learners into visual, audio and kinaesthetic styles may have been inherently flawed. Since most people are not even aware of their visual bias, any attempt to ascertain from them which senses they prefer to use in learning will be inherently inaccurate. We may state that we like to hear a voice when we engage in learning, or interacting with learning materials, but is that truly where our cognitive attention lies?

References:

• McLuhan, M. and McLuhan, E. (1988). Laws of Media: The New Science. University of Toronto Press
• Pashler, H, McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D. and Bjork, R. (2008).  Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence. Science in the Public Interest, 9 (3), pp. 106-119