Re: What determines whether a person is an Audio Learner, or Visual Learner?

Hi Martha,

     Interesting question! This is an area of research that has captured the interest of many people.

     Unfortunately, it's not clear which type of information is the 'best' way to allow future recall. One reason is that some people seem to acquire information better through visual than through auditory means. Another set of people is the opposite - they are auditory learners, but don't do as well with visual stimuli! Yet another set learns best from writing it down or manipulating it in certain way. More info on the different types of 'learners' can be found here and here.
     So if you showed the visual or auditory presentations to a group of people who were half auditory learners and half visual learners, you might infer that both types of presentations are equally effective. If the group just happen to have more auditory learners, you might infer that auditory is better. (and vice versa for visual learners)

     So what are you left to test? You could try to vary some of the properties of the visual stimuli (make them more jumbled or dimmer, etc) or auditory stimuli (making them louder or softer, or changing the pitch, etc). Then you could compare which is more effective - is a jumbled visual stimulus harder to recall than a pitch-shifted auditory stimulus? Or you could present the stimuli for different amounts of time - a visual stimulus may need to be presented longer than an auditory stimulus, since the visual system works a bit slower than the auditory system.

     I hope this info helps orient your project in a useful way!

cheers,
Alex