Knowing how human experience is constructed can be extremely useful in communication. Our inner subjective experience is structured in terms of our senses. When we think, or process information internally, we "re-present" the information in terms of the sensory systems that are our only contact with the 'outside world':

seeing Visual
hearing Auditory
feeling Kinaesthetic
smelling Olfactory
tasting Gustatory

It is possible to access any experience in any one, or any combination, of these five representation Systems (abbreviated to: V, A, K, 0 and G).

Eye Accessing Cues

People move their eyes in systematic directions depending on which representational system they are accessing. These movements are called eye accessing cues. The picture shows the kind of processing most people do when they move their eyes in a particular direction. Remember that this model is a stereotype, and always calibrate to the individual. (NB a small percentage of the population, including about half of all left-handers, are reversed - i.e. their eye movements are the mirror image of those shown.)

Imagine this picture superimposed over the eyes of the person you are looking at.

Visual constructed seeing new or different images, eg a pink elephant.
Auditory constructed hearing new or different sounds, eg the sound of your name backwards.
Kinesthetic emotional feelings, proprioception (feeling muscle movement), tactile sensations (sense of touch).
Visual remembered seeing images seen before, eg your face.
Auditory remembered. remembering sounds heard before: eg your doorbell.
Auditory dialogue sometimes called auditory digital, talking to oneself, eg "say something to your self that you often say".
Visual the blank stare ahead, either constructed or remembered.