Accordingly, if we but listen to the specific predicates or process words (primarily verbs, adjectives and adverbs) that a person uses, we can discover that person’s primary rep system. These predicates thus become language cues (linguistic markers) of the person’s internal processing (rep systems).
What value or importance does this awareness of predicate use in another person’s languaging have? A person’s use of predicates provides a major indicator of how that individual “makes sense” of the world and constructs their “internal reality.” Predicates thus provide us a major clue as to the person’s subjective reality—a “royal pathway” to their thinking-feeling and responding.
Predicates also greatly assist us in establishing rapport with people. If rapport refers to getting into a state of harmony, accord, and affinity with someone, then predicate awareness and use empowers us to quickly learn to “speak the other’s language.” It enables us to quickly hear and utilize the same language patterns that the other person uses. This, in turn, endows our words with a greater likelihood that the person will understand them. I (BB) like to think of rapport as “jumping inside another’s nervous system and suddenly making sense of how they understand reality.” When we get into rapport with someone else, we join that person (mentally and emotionally) in their model of the world. No wonder matching a person’s predicates provides great value for communication excellence.
We know of no easier way to gain solid rapport with another than by matching predicates. Doing so, you verbally mirror the individual’s way of thinking when you reflect back their primary rep system predicates.
By matching predicates, we exquisitely pace in a graceful and elegant process.
By matching predicates, we exquisitely pace in a graceful and elegant process. After consciously practicing this for a while, you will find yourself unconsciously matching predicates. When you do this mirroring in matching and pacing repeatedly it becomes an unconscious pattern in your responding and languaging. Matching predicates provides a simple yet profound way to accomplish deep rapport. Further, when we give a person back their favorite kind of process words, these words make so much sense in their reality that they just “slide in.” In other words, the person will not have to translate your words into their words nor notice the inherent meaningfulness of your languaging.
2.5 Predicates
For your convenience, I am including a thorough list of predicates. For months I kept such a list on my word processor during sermon preparation. My purpose was twofold. First, I desired to broaden my vocabulary. And second, I desired to make sure I was including all three rep systems in my message. If you desire to include everyone in your conversation, you need a vocabulary that includes all three.
2.5.0.1 VISUAL
admire foggy reveal
appear foresee scan
attractive form see
blurred gaze shiny
bright glance show
clear glare sight
cloudy gleam sightsee
colorful glow sparkle
conceal graphic spy
dark hazy staring
dawn illuminate strobe
disappear imagine surface
display obscure twinkle
envision observe vanish
exhibit look veil
expose peer view
eyed perspective visualize
faced picture vivid
flash preview watch
focus reflect
2.5.0.2 AUDITORY
announce harmonize request
answer harsh resonance
argue hear sang
asked hum shout
attune inquire shriek
call insult shrill
chatter lecture sighs
cheer listen silences
complain loud silent
crescendo melodious sound (s)
cry mention stammer
deaf mumble talk
discuss noisy tell
echo outspoken translate
explain overtones unhearing
expression question utter
growl quiet vocal
grumble recite yell
gurgling reply
2.5.0.3 KINESTHETIC
angle grapple slip
beat grasps smooth
bends grinds soft
bounce hard solid
break hold spike
brush hug stuffed
burdened hurt suffer
carry irritate sweep
clumsy mushy thick
comfortable movement touch
concrete pinch trample
crouching plush tremble
crumble pressure twist
exciting pull unbudging
feel rub unfeeling
firm run warm
fits scramble wash
flop scrape weigh
force shaky work
grab skip
2.5.0.4 OLFACTORY/GUSTATORY
bitter salty spicy
fragrant savor stale
fresh smell sweet
odor smoky taste
pungent sour
2.5.0.5 UNSPECIFIED PREDICATES
be conscious decide nice
be cognizant experience notice (v or a)
become aware feel that perceive
believe insensitive process
change know question
clear (v or a) learn sense
conceive light (v, a or k) think
consider motivate understand
Predicate Phrases3
2.5.0.6 VISUAL
an eyeful mental picture
appears to me mind’s eye
beyond a shadow of a doubt naked eye
bird’s eye view paint a picture
catch a glimpse of photographic crystal
clear cut plainly seen
clear view pretty as a picture
dim view see to it
eye to eye shortsighted
flashed on showing off
get a perspective sight for sore eyes
get a scope on snap shot
hazy idea staring off in space
horse of a different color image take a peek
in light of tunnel vision
in person under your nose
in view of well defined
make a scene
2.5.0.7 AUDITORY
be all ears make music
be heard manner of speaking
blabber mouth outspoken
clear as a bell pay attention to
clearly expressed power of speech
call on purrs like a kitten
describe in detail rap session
an earful rings a bell
express yourself state your purpose
give an account of tattle-tale
give me your ear to tell the truth
grant me an audience tongue-tied
heard voices tune in/tune out
hidden messages utterly
hold your tongue unheard of
idle talk voice an opinion
inquire into well formed
key-note speaker word for word
loud and clear
2.5.0.8 KINESTHETIC
all washed up hold it, hold on
be felt hot-head
boils down to keep your shirt on
catch on know-how
chip off the old block lay the cards on the table
come to grips with light headed
connect with make contact
control yourself moment of panic
cool/calm/collected pain-in-the-neck
firm foundations pull some strings
floating on thin air sharp as a tack
get a hold of slip through
get a handle on slipped my mind
get a load of this smooth operator
get in touch with start from scratch
get the drift of stiff upper lip
hand in hand throw out
hands on tap into
hang in th
ere topsy-turvy
heated argument turn around
2.5.0.9 DIGITAL
doesn’t compute hash it out
factor in the bottom line
get an account of
2.6 Matching Predicate Exercise
This exercise requires three people. Decide person “A,” “B,” and “C.” “A” serves as the operator, “B” role plays as the subject or client and “C” role plays as the advisor or meta-person.
“B” leaves the room and plans a two to three minute monologue about a present issue in their life. Make this first monologue positive.
When “B” returns, he tells the monologue to “A.” “A” responds to “B” using the same type predicates (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) that “B” used.
At the conclusion of the exercise, “B” tells “A” how well he did in matching her predicates. Give the positive remarks first by sharing where he matched your predicates. Afterwards, share where he mismatched or missed your predicates. “C” serves as the meta-person by sharing their agreement or disagreement with “B.”
Round robin—“A” becomes “B”. “B” becomes “A”. Repeat the exercise as above.
2.7 Eye Accessing Cues
NLP’s model for understanding and changing behavior utilizes the rep system as the basic building blocks of subjectivity. These systems describe the process by which we understand, represent, and operate on the world. All human experience results from external and internal perceptions of sensory data. To use this understanding, we must develop the ability to recognize rep systems as a particular person uses them. Amazingly, we can do just that! Doing this provides cues about their ongoing representational functioning. Then we can simply match their predicates to gain rapport.
Beyond predicate awareness, we can utilize other indicators about a person’s ongoing representing. We can notice their other accessing cues. Such cues tell us what system people access and when they access a particular modality. In the early days of NLP, Bandler and Grinder made this discovery. They noticed that when they asked certain questions in class, people would look in the same direction before they answered. From those preliminary observations, John and Richard formulated NLP.
Internal and external processes that people experience correlate with both eye movements and predicates.
They discovered, as Woodsmall (1990) later wrote, that the “…internal and external processes that people experienced were correlated with both eye movements and predicates.” In The Structure of Magic, Volumes I and II (1975/1976), Bandler and Grinder described the rep system theory, which now serves as the foundation of NLP. However, the first description of eye accessing patterns occurred in their classic work (1979), Frogs Into Princes, a publication that launched NLP into its present popularity. As these eye movements provide us such information, we can then use it to establish rapport.
Think about some time when you have noticed that people move their eyes while they talk and listen. These eye movements do not occur randomly. Each movement of the eyes functions to indicate certain neurological processing. The patterns go as follows: when most right-handed people move their eyes up and to the left, they recall pictures previously seen (visual process of remembered material). When they move their eyes up and to the right, they construct an image putting together pieces which they may not have ever seen.
John and Richard discovered that we can observe a person’s lateral eye movements and positions and thereby recognize when a person represents information visually, auditorily or kinesthetically.
Eyes moving level in the head to the left indicate recalling of remembered words. Eyes moving level to the right indicate the constructing of sentences. If the eyes go down and to the left, the person engages in an internal dialogue—usually about highly valued values and principles. Here a person has a synesthesia (combination, merging) of two senses— they speak feeling words to themselves as they consider something of importance. When eyes move down and to the right, they access kinesthetic awareness (feelings, sensations) and emotions. Eyes centered and defocused often indicates the person is making pictures; however, many also process internal dialogue this way.
The eye movements and positions do not create the internal experience, but reflect and indicate internal neurological information processing. Yet because the brain and nervous system work interactively as a holistic system, when we consciously manage our lateral eye movements, this can help to stimulate the corresponding portion of our representational brain. Thus, when I look up and to the left, I stimulate that part of my brain that stores pictures from my past. Ask a family member to recall their first bicycle and notice where the eyes go.
Woodsmall (1990) wrote about the scientific basis for eye accessing cues:
“Scientists have discovered a basic and ancient mechanism in the depths of the brain that physiologically relates eye movements to sensory memory recall. Called the “reticular formation,” this dense bundle of nerves serves as a sensory filter for the brain, deciding which messages are significant enough to be sent to the conscious mind for attention.
The nerves that control eye movements, a set of three nerves (the oculomotor, the trochlear and the abducens) which we’ll refer to simply as the oculomotor nerves, originate and derive from the reticular formation area. It is thought that whenever the eye is moved to a particular position, either instinctively or intentionally, the reticular formation is activated to send a beam or impulse to the brain to stimulate a particular sensory motor recall.” (p. 12).
The chart does not apply to everyone. Left-handed people and cerebrally reversed people may have a reversed pattern.
The following chart (Figure 1:2) identifies the eye movements and positions of most right-handed people. As you view the chart, it portrays a person as you look at them, hence, from your point of view. The arrows indicate what you see as you look directly at them. Figure 1:3 provides the same information giving the linguistic cues present with each eye position.
Does this chart hold true for everyone? No. A left-handed person, and anyone cerebrally reversed, will have their remembered and constructed sides reversed. Several people differ from this chart in just that way as a left-handed person. Their visual remembered and auditory remembered occur on the right side. The visual construct and auditory construct occur on the left side. However, some may still access auditory digital and kinesthetic in conformity with the chart, though these may reverse as well.
Further, some people’s eye accessing patterns do not occur in a way that shows as much distinction as indicated by the chart. They make much more subtle movements. For them, one has to observe much more closely to detect the different positions. As you watch the eyes, listen closely to the person’s predicates. Their predicates will provide redundant information about their processing/representing. Once you map someone’s eye patterns, you will find that they will tend to use the same pattern regularly and consistently.
Figure 1:2 Eye Position Chart
What does this have to do with rapport? Everything. When someone moves their eyes up, you can pretty well guess about them internally seeing pictures. So if you speak to them using visual words, you get on their wavelength. As you watch, notice how many people will move their eyes into position before they speak. As they do, you have a better than probable chance of knowing, before they even speak, the rep system they will use!
Figure 1:3 Language Accessing Cues
Recently, I (BB) sought to establish rapport with a client. Her eyes and head went down and to her left. So I asked, “As you think about the things we’ve talked about, what conclusions do you now reach?” This state so fit her internal world that it gave me continued rapport and assisted her in becoming aware of her internal dialogue.
Do take care to use this discreetly. Avoid staring. Most people will not appreciate it if you begin to stare at them. Use television talk shows to develop your skill at this. Since “the eyes are the window of the soul” we now can use that idea in a creative wa
y to develop our communicative skills.
Knowing these eye accessing patterns can further help us in building and maintaining rapport if we use them as cues as to when to talk and when not to talk. As predicates inform us about what system a person uses and usually has consciousness about, so we refer to this as the “lead system.”
2.8 Lead System
Accessing cues inform us about the rep system that people use to retrieve information. Our lead system frequently will differ from our primary rep system.
Our lead system frequently will differ from our primary rep system. Suppose I ask, “What is your name?” and your eyes go down and to the left. That suggests that you used the auditory digital system to lead. I also know that while you have moved your eyes down and to the left, you will not both listen and process internal information. For that millisecond, or minute, I need to stop, quiet myself, and give you the time to get the information. Once we share information, people have to process it. They have to “go inside” so to speak, and access their own internal understandings of the information. They may look up and visualize, they may move their eyes down into auditory digital, or they may access kinesthetic sensations. To maintain rapport, pause and give them time to process the information.
If you don’t, if you continue talking while a person accesses information, you may very well lose rapport. In that time period where they “go inside,” they don’t/can’t hear you. What will continually interrupting another’s “thinking” thought processes do? It will prevent you from ever gaining rapport as it prevents the person from completing their thoughts. So, watch eye movements. When a person’s eyes move to access information through their lead system, give them processing time.
The User's Manual for the Brain Volume I Page 4