predominantly visual people speak quickly. They refer to the pic-
tures in their mind when talking. A picture is worth a thousand
words, so these people must speak quickly to keep pace with the
pictures that come to them. Typically, these people pause as they
wait for their mind to access the next set of pictures.
Primarily auditory people tend to speak at medium speed
with a steady cadence, sometimes in a monotone. They access in-
formation as internal sounds. The sounds come to them at nor-
mal speaking speed.
The primarily kinesthetic person speaks s-l-o-w-l-y, using infor-
mation from their feelings to guide their speech. Feeling informa-
tion comes to the mind more slowly than pictures or sounds,
accounting for the slower speed.
To figure out what to say, determine whether the other person
has predominant moving-away or moving-toward motivation. To fig-
ure out how to say it, determine the other person’s primary inter-
nal representational system.
Speaking Speed 207