Probably the most frequent target of badly designed experiments aiming to ‘debunk’ NLP has been eye accessing cues – the idea that it’s easier to access memories or imagination using particular sensory modalities when your eyes are looking in a particular direction.
Now there’s some scientific research to support the idea that looking up improves visuo-spatial processing. You can view the PDF of the research article here:
Christophe Carlei & Dirk Kerzel (2020) Looking up improves performance in
verbal tasks, Laterality, 25:2, 198-214.
If you’re an NLP Trainer or Practitioner, you’ll want to familiarise yourself with this research!
My thanks to NLP thought leader Richard Bolstad for alerting me to this research.
Here’s a diagram to remind you of the eye accessing cues for a ‘normally wired’ person:
To be fair to genuine ‘NLP skeptics’ (as opposed to the people who decide that ‘NLP is pseudoscience’ and then go looking for evidence to support their point of view, which is the opposite of how science is supposed to work), eye accessing cues are tricky things to test.
Here are my earlier thoughts about eye accessing cues, the difficulty of designing experiments that adequately test the hypothesis, and links through to suggested questions to elicit eye accessing cues, and the late Andy Bradbury’s very detailed critiques of many previous experiments designed to ‘debunk’ NLP.
If you want to get the full picture on eye accessing cues and other aspects of sensory acuity and rapport, why not get my book Practical NLP 3: Sensory Acuity and Rapport?
This book reveals the secrets of NLP rapport methods in a practical fashion so you can start using straight away, as well as one or two things that ‘classic’ NLP doesn’t tell you.
What you’ll find inside:
- How to use peripheral vision to notice more
- The VIBES method for reading people better
- The 3 elements that science has identified for genuine rapport to happen
- How to achieve non-verbal rapport the easy way
- What ‘classic’ NLP doesn’t tell you about rapport
- Why you shouldn’t label people – especially not yourself – as ‘visual’ or ‘auditory’
… and much more!
Get Practical NLP 3: Sensory Acuity and Rapport today!
© 2022, Andy Smith. All rights reserved.
