NLP Communication Model cont.
This page continues from the previous page on the NLP communication model - the diagram is repeated here for ease of reference.
Learning about the the individual sensory filters and how they delete, distort and generalise the information coming in through our five senses will be covered on the next page. For now it's more useful to close the loop on the NLP communication model by explaining what happens to the information once it has passed through the filters, providing the resultant 7+/-2 chunks or 134 bits of data that the conscious mind can usefully attend to.
So far the data from the external event - the sights, sounds, feelings, tastes and smells, has been filtered down to a manageable size. This data then gets stored in our mind as an internal representation of that external event. How that internal representation (IR) compares with the external event will depend on what the filters deleted, how the filters distorted the data and whether any existing or freshly made generalisations were applied.
It's also worth noting at this stage that generalisations can get revised as we make new learnings and these revisions can cause us to re-evaluate internal representations we've made about past external events i.e. we see things in a new light and have a different appreciation / change our opinions of something that happened in the past. Remember - all learning and behaviour is geared towards adaptation.
So we have an internal representation (or thought if you prefer a 'user friendly' term) of an external event. That internal representation and our evaluation of it is intimately linked to our emotional state (how we feel), our physiology (body position, skin colour and temperature, muscle tone etc.) and to our behaviour (our actions) for example:-
- Queueing for the latest big-thrill super-looping gut wrenching roller-coaster ride at our favourite theme park we see the train flash past, hear riders screaming, feel the vibrations resonate through the structure under the G-force. We may feel excited, feel the effects of adrenaline on our body and whoop with excitement as we push to the front of the queue. On the other hand we may feel sick with dread, attempt to make ourselves as small as possible and then run in the opposite direction as fast as our now wobbly legs can carry us.
- Hearing a pitiful 'miow' we look up to see a tiny kitten, successful in it's first adventure into tree climbing. Problem is that it hasn't worked out how to get down yet and it's cries suggest that it's none too pleased about it. We may feel sympathy for the tiny creature, adopt the persona of our favourite super hero and rescue this brave fur ball from it's predicament. On the other hand we may feel disdain for it's 'obvious stupidity', snarl in it's general direction decide that it should have thought about how it was going to get down from the tree before embarking on it's ascent and that it 'has to learn some time'.
Now that we've considered two possible external events and seen how subjectively we could experience very different emotional states, experience very different changes in our physiology and exhibit very different behaviours we understand the beginning and end points of the NLP communication model.
The 'bits-in-the-middle' that influence which set or combination of state and physiology we will experience and which behaviours that might produce are the filters - so now it's useful to understand more about how they work and we'll begin to look at that on the next page.