Hey everyone, welcome back to My Weird Prompts! I am Corn, and I am joined as always by my brother.
Herman Poppleberry, reporting for duty! And we have a really personal one today, Corn. Our housemate Daniel sent over a prompt that actually hits home for all of us living here in Jerusalem.
It really does. Daniel was talking about how he uses audio to cut through the avalanche of information we deal with every day. He mentioned listening to this very podcast while waking up with his eyes closed, which is a pretty cool image. But he specifically wanted to dive into learning styles.
Right. He is a self-identified auditory learner, and he is curious about how someone with that preference can tackle skills that seem inherently visual. Plus, he wants the hard data on how these styles are actually distributed across the population.
It is a great question because I think almost everyone has said at some point, oh, I am a visual learner or I need to hear it to get it. But Herman, I know you have been digging into the pedagogical research on this, and I suspect you are itching to tell me that everything we think we know is wrong.
You know me too well, Corn. It is one of the most persistent myths in education. But before we get to the myth-busting, let us acknowledge the feeling Daniel is describing. That resonance with audio is real. There is a reason podcasts have exploded. There is an intimacy and a cognitive ease to listening that you do not always get from staring at a page.
Right. So, let us start with the breakdown Daniel asked for. If we look at the traditional model, what are the numbers? How many people actually fall into these different buckets?
So, the model most people are familiar with is called the V-A-R-K model. That stands for Visual, Auditory, Read-Write, and Kinesthetic. It was popularized in the late eighties by Neil Fleming. According to various surveys based on that model, about sixty-five percent of the population identifies as visual learners. About thirty percent say they are auditory learners, like Daniel. And the remaining five percent or so identify as kinesthetic, meaning they learn by doing or moving.
Sixty-five percent is a huge majority for visual. It makes sense, given how much of our brain is dedicated to processing visual information. But Herman, I see that look on your face. There is a massive asterisk next to those numbers, isn't there?
A giant, glowing, neon sign of an asterisk, Corn. Here is the thing that most people do not realize: while people have very strong preferences for how they like to receive information, there is almost no evidence that matching instruction to a person's preferred style actually improves learning outcomes.
Wait, really? That feels incredibly counterintuitive. If I feel like I learn better by watching a video, doesn't that mean I am actually learning better?
Not necessarily. This is what researchers call the Meshing Hypothesis. The idea is that if you mesh the teaching style to the learning style, you get better results. But in two thousand eight, a group of prominent cognitive psychologists, led by Harold Pashler, conducted a massive review of the literature. They found that virtually none of the studies used an experimental design that could actually prove the hypothesis. And the ones that did? They mostly showed no effect.
So, if I am an auditory learner and you give me an audio lecture, I might enjoy it more, but I won't necessarily score higher on a test than if you gave me a diagram?
Precisely. In fact, some studies showed that people who thought they were visual learners actually performed better when the information was presented in text, and vice versa. The preference is about comfort, not necessarily cognitive efficiency.
That is fascinating. It is like the difference between what we want to eat and what is actually nutritious for us. But okay, if the styles themselves are a bit of a myth, Daniel’s question still stands. He feels a pull toward audio. He finds it relaxing and engaging. So how does he, or anyone who prefers audio, leverage that for something visual? Let us say he wants to learn architectural sketching or maybe data visualization. Those are purely visual skills.
This is where we get into the really useful stuff, because even if the learning styles theory is flawed, the concept of multi-modal learning is very real. And for someone who gravitates toward audio, there are specific techniques to bridge that gap. The first one is something called the Self-Explanation Effect.
I have heard of this. Is that where you basically talk to yourself while you are working?
That's right. For an auditory-leaning person, the act of translating a visual observation into spoken words is incredibly powerful. If Daniel is trying to learn how to sketch a building, instead of just looking at the lines, he should describe them out loud. He might say, okay, the roofline here has a fifteen-degree pitch, and it meets the vertical pillar at this specific junction. By narrating the visual process, he is forcing his brain to process the information through his preferred auditory channel.
That makes a lot of sense. It is like you are creating an audio track for a silent movie. You are encoding the visual information in a way that your brain finds more salient.
Right! It is actually a form of dual coding. Dual Coding Theory, which was developed by Allan Paivio in the early seventies, suggests that we have two separate systems for processing information: one for verbal or auditory stimuli and one for non-verbal or visual stimuli. When you use both simultaneously, you create two different traces in your memory. So, if Daniel talks through a visual task, he is not just learning visually; he is double-encoding that information.
I love that. It actually makes the learning more robust. But what about the resources themselves? If you are an auditory learner, looking at a textbook full of diagrams can feel draining. How do you find the right input?
You have to look for descriptive audio. Think about how museums have those audio guides. They don't just tell you the date a painting was made; they describe the brushwork, the colors, the composition. If you are learning a visual skill, find teachers who are extremely verbal. There are some YouTubers or instructors who are great at the visual part but stay silent while they work. For Daniel, those are the worst teachers. He needs the ones who are constant narrators.
That is a great tip. It is about finding the right match for your input preference, even if the skill itself is visual. I also think about things like the rubber ducking method in programming. You explain your code to a literal rubber duck on your desk. If you are struggling with a visual layout or a design problem, explaining the problem out loud to an imaginary listener might reveal the solution.
That's a great point. And here is another one: transcription and translation. If Daniel is watching a visual tutorial, he should try to transcribe the key visual steps into an audio recording for himself. He could watch a five-minute segment on color theory, then hit record on his phone and explain what he just saw in his own words. Then, later, he can listen to his own explanation while he is walking or doing the dishes.
Oh, that is clever! You are essentially creating your own customized podcast for the topic you are trying to learn. You are taking the visual input, processing it, and outputting it as audio, which you then consume later. That sounds like a triple threat for memory retention.
It really is. And it addresses Daniel's point about audio being a medium that lets you do other things. You can't sketch a building while you are driving, but you can certainly listen to your own recorded notes about the principles of perspective while you are in traffic.
You know, Herman, this makes me think about the second-order effects of this. If we all start leaning into our preferences like this, does it make us less flexible? Like, if Daniel only ever learns through audio, does his visual processing power start to atrophy?
That is a deep question, Corn. The research actually suggests the opposite. By using audio to bridge into visual topics, you are building more connections between different parts of your brain. You are becoming more multi-modal, not less. The goal isn't to avoid the visual; it is to use the auditory as a gateway.
Like a scaffold.
That's it! Once the scaffold is there and the concepts are firm in your mind because you talked through them, the visual part actually becomes easier to handle. You are reducing the cognitive load.
Let us talk about that cognitive load for a second. Because I think that is a huge part of why people prefer one style over another. If I find reading a wall of text exhausting, it is probably because my verbal processing is taking up too much energy, right?
Spot on. Cognitive Load Theory, developed by John Sweller, tells us that our working memory has a very limited capacity. If you are an auditory-leaning person, your brain might just be more efficient at processing spoken language. So, when you listen, you have more leftover mental energy to actually think about the concepts, rather than just spending it all on the act of decoding text or complex imagery.
So, for Daniel, the audio prompt isn't just a preference; it is a strategy to keep his working memory available for the hard part of learning.
Precisely. And that is why he enjoys listening to this podcast while waking up. His brain is in a relaxed state, his eyes are closed so there is zero visual competition, and he can just let the information flow in through the channel that has the least resistance for him.
It is funny, because I am the opposite. If I am really trying to learn something complex, I need to see it. I need the diagram. If someone just talks at me for twenty minutes, I start to lose the thread. I need to anchor it with my eyes.
And that is perfectly fine! The key is knowing your own resistance points. But here is the fascinating thing: even for you, Corn, if you only use the visual, you are missing out. The most effective learning happens when you combine them. There is a famous study where students were shown an animation of how a lightning bolt forms. One group got the animation with on-screen text, and another group got the animation with a spoken narration.
I am going to guess the narration group did better.
Significantly better. It is called the Modality Effect. Because the eyes were busy with the animation, adding text created a visual bottleneck. But by using the ears for the explanation, the students could process both streams of information simultaneously without overloading either sense.
That is such a powerful insight. It actually suggests that the best way to learn a visual skill is not just to watch it, but to hear someone explain it while you watch it. Daniel’s auditory preference is actually a superpower if he uses it to supplement the visual.
Precisely. He shouldn't try to replace the visual with audio. He should use audio to narrate and explain the visual. It is about synthesis.
So, let us recap some of those practical takeaways for Daniel and anyone else listening who identifies as an auditory learner. First, narration. Talk through what you are seeing. Second, find the right teachers—the ones who are highly verbal and descriptive. Third, create your own audio notes by recording yourself explaining visual concepts.
And don't forget the power of audio-guided practice. If you are learning something like yoga or coding, find resources that talk you through the movements or the logic step-by-step. There are even apps now that use artificial intelligence to turn visual diagrams into descriptive text-to-speech. That could be a game-changer for someone like Daniel.
I was just going to mention artificial intelligence. We are in February of two thousand twenty-six now, and the tools we have for this are incredible. You can take a screenshot of a complex chart and ask a multimodal model like Gemini or GPT to explain it to you in the style of a podcast host. You are essentially turning the whole world into an auditory learning environment.
It is amazing. We have moved from just having podcasts to having personalized, on-demand audio tutors for literally any subject. If Daniel is struggling with a visual concept, he can just feed it to an A-I and say, talk me through this like we are having a conversation.
That is such a good point. It really democratizes learning. It doesn't matter if the material was originally designed for your preference; you can now transform it into whatever format works best for you.
Indeed. But we should also address the other part of Daniel's prompt: the population breakdown. While the sixty-five, thirty, five split is the common wisdom, recent meta-analyses suggest that most people are actually multi-modal. About sixty percent of people say they don't have one single dominant style; they like a mix depending on the context.
That makes a lot of sense. We are complex creatures. We probably use different styles for different tasks. I might be visual for geography but auditory for learning a new language.
Right. And kinesthetic for learning to ride a bike. You can't listen to a podcast to learn how to balance on two wheels. You have to feel the gravity and the momentum.
True. Although I am sure someone has tried to make a podcast for that. So, Herman, what do you think the future holds for this? Are we going to see more specialized audio-learning tools?
I think so. I think we are going to see a shift away from the idea of fixed learning styles and toward the idea of adaptive learning interfaces. Imagine a textbook that detects you are spending a long time staring at a diagram without moving on. It might trigger a voice-over that says, hey, let me explain what you are looking at here. It will sense your friction and offer a different modality to help you through it.
That sounds like the ultimate version of what Daniel was talking about. Audio as the knife that cuts through the avalanche of information.
That's it. It is about reducing the friction of the world. And honestly, Corn, I think that is why we do this show. We are taking complex, often visual or text-heavy topics, and we are turning them into a conversation. We are doing the work of translation for our listeners.
That is a nice way to think about it. We are the audio guides for the museum of weird ideas.
I like that! We should put that on a t-shirt.
Maybe we will. But before we wrap up, I want to go back to one thing you said earlier, Herman. You mentioned that the learning styles myth is one of the most persistent in education. Why do you think that is? Why do we want to believe so badly that we are a certain type of learner?
I think it is because it gives us a sense of identity and a reason for why we might struggle with certain things. If I fail a math test, it is easier to say, oh, that is because the teacher didn't teach to my visual style, rather than saying, I just didn't put in the work or the material was just plain hard. It is a comforting label.
That is a bit of a hard truth, isn't it?
It is. But the good news is that by letting go of those labels, we actually open ourselves up to more ways of learning. If Daniel thinks, I can't learn this because it is visual and I am an auditory learner, he is limiting himself. But if he thinks, I am an auditory-leaning person, so I am going to use audio as my secret weapon to master this visual skill, then he is unstoppable.
It is about agency. Using your preferences as a tool rather than a cage.
Precisely. And that is a much more empowering way to look at it.
I agree. You know, thinking about Daniel listening to this while he is waking up... it makes me realize how much responsibility we have! We are literally the first voices he hears in the morning.
We better make sure we are saying something useful then! No pressure, right?
None at all. But honestly, it is a privilege. And it is a testament to the power of the medium. Audio has this way of slipping into the cracks of our day in a way that nothing else can.
It really does. Whether you are driving, or walking through the streets of Jerusalem, or just lying there with your eyes closed, audio is there. It is the background track to our lives.
Well, I think we have given Daniel a lot to chew on. From the myth-busting about V-A-R-K to the practicalities of dual coding and self-explanation. It is not about being one type of learner; it is about being a smart learner who knows how to use every tool in the shed.
And if your favorite tool is a hammer, you find a way to make every problem look like a nail—or in this case, if your favorite tool is your ears, you find a way to make every topic sound like a story.
I love that. Well, Herman, I think that just about covers it
