If you are not sure how to spell a word, what do you do? Look it up online or in a dictionary, write out several different spellings to see which fits best, say the word out loud, ask somebody?
If you are not sure how to get to a certain destination, what is the very first thing you’ll do? Turn on your GPS or consult a map, ask for directions, start driving to see if you can find it on your own?
If you are buying a car, what’s the most important source of information on it? Trial drive? Kelley Blue Book? The way the car looks? What your friends or online reviewers say about it?
If you are trying to learn to make a new dish, what do you do first? Call a friend who knows how to make it and ask for a recipe? Look up a recipe online? Start cooking, relying upon your intuition to guide you?
Clarissa's Blog 
All of the above, in each situation you mentioned here, except that I do not own a GPS receiver.
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And then you said you were not a multitasker. 🙂
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I’ve known for a long time that my sensory preferences are
kino (esp body memory)
hearing (not too far back)
sight (waaaaay behind)
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I always thought I was completely verbal. Weirdness.
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A related issue — there are people whose mind’s eye is completely blind (also mind’s ear is deaf, mind’s nose can’t smell etc.). I didn’t even know such people existed until recently. The condition is called aphantasia.
Here’s a first-person account by the writer of “Silicon Valley”. It’s fascinating:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/blake-ross/aphantasia-how-it-feels-to-be-blind-in-your-mind/10156834777480504/
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Human variety is fascinating.
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My preferences are verbal, followed closely by visual and kinetic. Visual and kinetic are heavily tied together for me. Verbal is also heavily tied to visual (though not in certain situations)–synesthesia will do that. :p It’s always more complicated than just one preference, in my experience.
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Interesting that you would mention buying a car, because now because of crap that’s kept me in hospital for an extended period, I realise I need one if only to be able to rush to pick up supplies and to perhaps drive myself to an emergency room …
I’m buying a specific model mostly because when I’ve been driven around in one, I’ve realised it isn’t total crap. It also has one of those “bumper-to-bumper” multi-year warranties that sorts out many of the outright manufacturing defects.
Because I refuse to have much in the way of investable cash tied up in an asset as ridiculous as a vehicle, I’m not looking at something like the Ford Escape, which is to me a bit like a wanna-be rally car that’s unfortunate enough to have a mini-HGV strapped to it. There’s one nearby that I can rent with Zipcar anyway, and if I rent it at the right time, I don’t spend over $100/day on it.
I’ve read all of the model specs, I’ve looked at the reviews, and they support the general feeling I’ve had when I’ve been driven around in one of these vehicles.
By all rights, I should probably wind up with a Mini because it’s agile and suitable for avoiding some of the more insane drivers here, but I never liked Leyland’s layout of the original and I definitely don’t like the model’s reboot. Instead, I’m buying something that’s roughly 2 1/2 times its size, something I would never dream about buying in the UK because of the cost of petrol.
So yes, kinaesthetics matter to me, aesthetics matter to me quite a lot, but I still need to be swayed by actual facts and figures, including what my cost-per-mile rate for ownership will be.
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BTW, about my moderate absence …
While I was in hospital, I had my E-mail account and my Disqus account accessed by someone other than me. I suspect this involved a brute-force attack on the password storage file I’ve been using for these things, which makes me wonder how many resources this attacker has.
It probably did not help that my password storage file password was a slightly arrogant Russian phrase written in Volapuk, and that in this light it was more than slightly ironic. 🙂
Fortunately all that was accessed was everything I use for the pseudonym Jones, because of course I believe in such things as compartmented security protocols. Unfortunately, even that much access was possible, and I’ve had to take the precaution of deleting all of those accounts. I’d rather not have people using my accounts as sock puppets that could sound like Microsoft’s Tay.
I have no idea how long this much access was possible because the attacker hasn’t been triggering alarms, which indicates a further degree of sophistication.
I have no clue why someone would even bother, unless someone has come very close to guessing my True Name in the Real World, and I have more than a little Vernor Vinge-esque paranoia about such a thing because of Real World complications.
I also suspect Stephen Fry is ultimately right. The Internet has become a bit of an ugly place, a large pool that’s more than a bit full of wee, and I’m not sure I really want to deal with much of it aside from the mercantile aspects of such things as Amazon and the occasional read of such things as FT and The Telegraph.
I think it generally means I’m out until I become comfortable with liking the Internet again — I’m not the sort of person who has a burning need to be on it.
I may be around again, but I think I could sit out the current storm of hackers and trolls for quite a while.
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Huh. Apparently, rather than having much of a positive leaning, I’m rather most strongly defined by the fact that I’m very definitely not verbal. I am happy to fiddle with things on my own or look up the necessary info, but I’ll do just about anything else, no matter how time-consuming or impractical, to avoid having to ask other people anything.
I find that I have a slight hearing comprehension problem when it comes to human voice, though my hearing is otherwise fine. I need to either ask people to repeat themselves six times after they utter a sentence, or just go by my best guess of what I think they’re saying, both of which are pretty awkward things to do.
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If you are not sure how to spell a word, what do you do? Look it up online or in a dictionary, write out several different spellings to see which fits best, say the word out loud, ask somebody?
Everything except ask someone. People usually ask me how to spell things. Sounding out is the next least helpful.
If you are not sure how to get to a certain destination, what is the very first thing you’ll do? Turn on your GPS or consult a map, ask for directions, start driving to see if you can find it on your own?
GPS, then driving then ask for directions. I will never be an Uber driver, I’ve gotten lost going to places I’ve gone before
If you are buying a car, what’s the most important source of information on it? Trial drive? Kelley Blue Book? The way the car looks? What your friends or online reviewers say about it?
All four. I won’t buy a car without a trial drive though because I’m short. If it’s used a mechanic is looking at it because I have no mechanical skills whatsoever.
If you are trying to learn to make a new dish, what do you do first? Call a friend who knows how to make it and ask for a recipe? Look up a recipe online? Start cooking, relying upon your intuition to guide you?
Depends on the dish. I can’t rank them. If it’s South Indian, I’ll either call my mother (who is very intuitive as she goes, so it’s limited) or go online and try to wing it from memory. If it’s baking or requires an oven I go for a recipe online or ask a friend. If it’s something else I’ll either wing it completely or look at recipe online and wing it from there.
I’ll read the manual for furniture and shower fixtures though.
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Spelling: type it in Google’s search bar, see what happens with autocomplete. If I have no internet, I just type it out.
Getting places: map if I’m not familiar with the area and the destination at all, walking around otherwise.
New dish: look at 8-10 recipes for it, then start improvising.
Basically, I’m primarily a kinesthetic learner, with a strong visual component (especially if we take the written word to be visual) and almost no auditory learning ability worth mentioning
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In English (for native speakers*) people tend to express their preferences (other language I know of don’t do this as consistently AFAICT). You have to control for/disregard “I see” for “I understand” but apart from that
visual: see the picture clearly, see what someone means, see where smn is coming from, get a clear picture of, etc
audio/verbal: hear where you’re coming from, I hear you, do you hear what I’m saying etc
kino/touch/feel: I feel, I get it, apprehend and idea, be struck by sth, to grasp an idea, get a hold of an idea, etc
Everybody mixes to some degree, but many to most people will tell you what their preference is.
Once you know about this, learning to pick up on this and then match your speech with your interlocutor’s preference can be a very powerful tool of communication.
*non-native speakers tend to not exploit this kind of feature, not out of lack of fluency but through the widely noticed phenomenon of non-native speakers being a bit more logical than expressive
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IIRC extreme subvocalization while reading (or thinking) involving lip and tongue movement tends to correspond with a kinesthetic preference.
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Since you asked, Clarissa:
In answer to your questions in your very first post on this blog subject, here’s how I solve the problems:
If I don’t know how to spell a word, I immediately look it up in an online dictionary! Trying to spell it repeatedly myself, like trying to write it down repeatedly, only confirms what I already know about my fluent English: My grammar is perfect, but my spelling stinks. I live alone, so whom would I ask?
“If you are not sure how to get to a certain destination, what is the very first thing you’ll do?”
When I was in the Air Force, driving in Europe and Asia and the Middle East, I got lost ALL OVER THE WORLD, adding to my previous civilian record of getting lost in Tennessee and California prior to putting on the uniform. Actually, getting lost everywhere on this planet and surviving it gave me considerable confidence, but modern technology has solved that for me. Now I print out TWO Internet maps — one from Google, and one from AAA’s Trip-Tek program — before I drive to any unknown address in the Phoenix metro area today. Works like a charm, and I even get to my destination on time.
If I’m buying a new car, the only questions are: Is it a Cadillac? (An absolute requirement). Is it a full-size sedan with plenty of leg and headroom for every passenger, plus lots of trunk room? Does it have an exceptionally smooth AND quiet ride? Does it have a digital dashboard? (The newer Cadillac models don’t — screw them! Why do I need a tachometer in a car with an automatic shift?) Does it have the latest technology –a projected-through-the-windshield “heads-up-display” like the aircraft I used to fly in the USAF. And finally: does it look like an American luxury sedan, and not like a knock-off luxury sports car. ( If I wanted a European luxury sports car, do you think I be buying a Cadillac to begin with?) A test drive is vital, of course. Who cares what my friends ( most of whom can’t afford Cadillacs, anyway) or worthless magazines like Consumer Reports — who don’t even review top of the line automobiles — think?
When it come to assembling something new, I always read the instructions carefully first, carefully comparing the pictures in the manual to the actual appearance of the parts to be put together, and make sure that I have all the necessary tools and necessary time to do the task in a single work period before I start. That way, I only have to put the assembly together once — the right way the fist time!
So I guess my method is obsessive-compulsive, mainly visual (read, look, and study), auditory only if I find a good instructional video on the Internet, and almost never kinesthetic (which sounds like amateurish trial and error to me). The only time I write instructions down is if I need to take notes from an instructional video, or if I need to clarify the less-than-well-written instructions in the original printed instruction manual.
Bottom line: Preparation goes a LONG way toward successfully completing a complex task correctly on the first try!
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