Correlation between learning styles and sensitivities?

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rebbieh
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13 Jul 2014, 8:27 am

I read quite a bit. I average five books a month (a mixture between fiction and non-fiction), textbooks for university excluded, and I've noticed how I very often read out loud when I'm at home reading a book. It somehow makes it easier to focus and following the story or the information or whatever. It's probably also one of the ways I learn things. By hearing things. Lectures at university for example. I think I learn things best by hearing them but also by seeing them. When I see text (in textbooks at university for example) or pictures I often remember them (not all of it) or remember what the page looked like that has the answer to the question in an exam. During my ASD assessment, I aced a memory test where I had to remember a picture with a lot of details. I remembered all of it and could draw it without missing a thing both one and two hours after first seeing the picture (which the psychologist said doesn't happen that often at all). When learning practical things in the lab I want to see someone else do the experiment first and then I can do it myself. I often remember things people say as well and I very often talk to myself in order to process things and organise my thoughts.

Noises and visual stimuli are probably the things I'm the most sensitive to as well. Perhaps this is a stupid question with an obvious answer but I'm just wondering if any of you know if there's a correlation between learning styles and sensitivities?

EDIT: I feel like I should add that even though I think I'm quite sensitive to visual stimuli, I really like observing things. I just get overwhelmed sometimes. Being in the city centre is tough for example. Sounds and people moving in different directions everywhere.



Last edited by rebbieh on 13 Jul 2014, 9:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

Quill
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13 Jul 2014, 8:53 am

That is an interesting idea, and I want to see more answers. It's not true for me. Sounds are my worst sensory issues, but my auditory memory is terrible and I don't always retain much of what I hear. I learn best visually through reading and demonstrations, and my visual sensitivities are mild. So it's basically the opposite in my case, I guess.



WHOperhero
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13 Jul 2014, 2:25 pm

Huh, this is interesting. I don't think it applies to me though. My main sensitivity is sound, and my other, though less severe one, is touch. While I am talented musically, which would relate to sound, I am also good at visual learning. Like in school, I learn best through reading things, whereas I often cannot remember oral lectures. I also wear glasses. Not sure if my bad distance vision has anything to do with this.



Drehmaschine
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14 Jul 2014, 8:45 am

I am very visual and tactile, so it makes sense this is how I perceive things about myself. Also because of this, it can be easy to become overloaded via these routes.



jofiquartz
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02 Feb 2020, 11:09 pm

I like this idea that a sensitivity can also be a superpower. And it also makes sense that people can find that the noise in the line makes it hard to learn as well. It's an interesting question!

I am annoyed by smells and vibrations very easily and can sense them sometimes when others can't. I am not able to hear or see better than most, but noises and visuals bother me when they are violent or busy or interrupting what I'm trying to do. I can't watch shaky camera footage.

I also have a great memory. I retain very well the content of classes and of events in my life, though not necessarily their sensory elements. When studying, I can use the arrangement of items on the page to remember them. And I remember where things are in space. Maybe this is related to finding visual movement so irritating sometimes.

It's more draining for me to listen to an audiobook than to read it. But I can listen to a person talk in person in a lecture for hours. I think this has to do with total focus. I prefer total focus on any topic and I have, resultantly, excellent retention. When there are things competing for my focus (lawnmower or foot-tapper or shampoo smell in the background, what I see around me vs. what I'm listening to through my earbuds) I get grizzly and irate. But in a quiet classroom, I am absorbed completely. Actually, even taking notes is a bit distracting. But I remember the concepts for hours and can write something down later if I want.

I guess how I remember and learn overall is in these sort-of concept maps. Things are arranged in space. But specific visual (or other sensory elements) are not produced. In rats, and probably our common rodent-like ancestors, memory is predominately olfactory and spatial (and emotional). Maybe it's common for smell and spatial and emotional memory to go hand in hand in homo sapiens?

It would be amazing to collect these idiosyncrasies about people on such a scale that we could grab inferences with AI...


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starkid
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03 Feb 2020, 9:38 pm

It's the opposite for me; I'm sensitive to noise and can't learn well from auditory material. I almost flunked out of college because a couple of my classes relied heavily on lecture instead of on the textbook. The lectures go in one ear and out the other.

The one exception is that my auditory processing issues make it easy for me to learn to pronounce things properly, so my pronunciation of foreign languages is always very good for a beginner (several people who speak the languages I study have told me so).



dragonsanddemons
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03 Feb 2020, 9:59 pm

Hmm, hearing is my most sensitive sense (so much so that I rely on hearing as much as or maybe even more than sight - to me wearing earplugs feels like walking around with my eyes closed, it's so disorienting), but listening is the way I learn least well. I learn best by reading and writing and by example.


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04 Feb 2020, 1:53 am

Sight is my most powerful sense. It's also the way that I learn the best.


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