Noise

Sweet relief. I had found the only place on campus with space to breath; a sanctuary of silence.

After accepting so many new students that the university had to house some freshman in nearby motels, the campus had become a nightmare of overcrowding. You couldn’t find a place to sit much less focus. As someone who valued privacy and couldn’t work while listening to music, much less the sound of busywork and large-scale commiseration, the university halls had become hostile to my educational pursuits

The library in the Stewart Center offered an oasis. As I passed through the doors, I relaxed the tight fists I had unconsciously clenched and made my way to the lounge in the back that few students knew existed. To my horror, the tables were occupied by quiet study groups and a couple chatted pleasantly in the armchairs in the corner; I wanted to bash some skulls. I was officially out of options.

Over time, I gained some measure of control over my immediate environment and learned to block out the noise, but the only real solution is solitude. This sensitivity to audible stimuli had always led me to believe I was an auditory learner; this couldn’t be farther from the truth. I had mistook my attentional disposition for my natural learning style. Now, having worked with many students with learning challenges, I realize that I was in good company. The truth is, almost everyone, with the exception of the blind and a smattering of others, learns faster through visual processing. This isn’t to say that the other senses don’t play a role in the learning process – they certainly do – but in the vast majority of cases, the brain can utilize images more effectively than other sensory inputs.

If this is the case, why is it that so many people believe they are auditory learners?

It comes down to attentional disposition.

Attentional Disposition

Unless you are in a severe coma (and even then it is debatable), you are taking in information via your senses all the time: sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures. This information is coalesced and processed by your brain to form an understanding of the world around you, constituting spatial awareness and a sense of time passing. While everyone uses their senses for these same basic purposes, the degree to which they are used varies from person to person. The extreme example would be of one who has lost a sense entirely – someone who is blind for example. A blind man or woman often experiences heightened performance from the other senses as they make up for the lack of sight. In this way, a blind person is disposed to pay attention to sound, smell, taste, and texture rather than sight, because it simply isn’t an option. For those with all of their senses intact, a similar disposition towards one or more senses occurs, though to a lesser degree. This inclination, or tendency to attend to certain forms of sensory stimuli over others, is called attentional disposition. When someone tells me they are an auditory learner, often, in reality, they have involuntarily discovered an attentional disposition.

Everyone favors some sense, or senses, over others. This occurs for a variety of reasons ranging from genetics, to upbringing, to circumstance, or pure personal preference. Though these dispositions tend to become stubborn characteristics, they can be fundamentally adjusted over time, and temporarily modified depending on the situation. For example, in a loud stadium, one can choose to attend more carefully to visual stimuli and communicate with gestures rather than speech. Usually when I refer to attentional disposition, I will be talking about the stubborn characteristic rather than intentionally modified behavior. Attentional disposition does play an important role in learning, but not in the way most people think. One’s disposition plays a greater role in informing how materials should (or should not) be presented and how one’s environment should be designed, than it does in the informational transactions that comprise the learning process. In other words, just because something is hard to ignore doesn’t make it a good vessel for information. I know that might be a little confusing so let me provide an example.

Let’s say Alonso has discovered that he has a strong attentional disposition towards auditory stimuli. He has read this article, so he knows that this doesn’t necessarily make him an “auditory learner,” it just means that he is either genetically predisposed to pay more attention to sound or, more likely, 18 years of traditional education lectures have conditioned him listen more than he looks. Despite this, he knows that his brain actually prefers to store information visually and he wants to use the highly visual study methods created for him by his coach. Alonso wisely devises a strategy taking all of this into account. He carefully designs his study space to minimize audible distractions, turning off alerts and notifications, and wearing headphones. Although he cannot eliminate all of the ambient noise, he suppresses the effects by turning on a fan and plays pink noise through his headphones. Having effectively eliminated external audio distractions, he maintains a high level of focus throughout his study session – but he doesn’t stop there. Alonso uses his attentional disposition to his advantage by incorporating sounds with the visual material. The sounds do not themselves convey information, rather, they draw attention to the images which carry information. He wants to remember that Iron supports good gut bacteria, so he creates a visual marker of Iron Man crawling into his stomach to help a bacterium on the bench press (pumping iron); in order to draw extra attention to the image he makes sure to hear the bacterium grunting loudly as it lifts the weight and Iron Man’s encouraging voice yelling “you got this! one more rep!” Although sounds are not efficient for encoding and transferring information into long term memory, Alonso uses them to keep his attention focused on the imagery he creates.

See how Alonso used his attentional disposition to his advantage rather than letting it handicap his study efforts? You can do the same.

Mastering Attention

As I mentioned in the example, lecture-style classes condition students to listen more than they look. This is a major reason so many people consider themselves to be auditory learners. But maybe you don’t. Maybe you have an attentional disposition towards visual or tactile information, or maybe you just get distracted by everything! The prescription is the same. If visuals grab your attention, great! This can serve you well as you learn to convert all information into images; just make sure to eliminating external visual distractions from your work space (desk/room clutter, screens, flashing lights, etc.) If you are more tactile, awesome! Interact with your images, if you are helping a bacterium bench press, feel the weight and the coolness of the bar; try to avoid studying in bowling alleys… unless you are into that kind of thing.

Understanding your attentional disposition(s) is a big step towards mastering your attention and managing your focus and, as you can read about here, this is key towards making the most of your time.

Want to learn more about how to take back control of your attention? I’ve got you covered.

Collin Jewett is an engineer, author, and accelerated learning and memory coach. When not exploring the Colorado wilderness with his wife Jess, Collin can be found writing his next book, recording educational content, or working directly with businesses and individuals to maximize their growth potential.