Are you a Verbal or Visual Thinker?

HOW you think may affect your life in unexpected ways.

Last week a friend sent me a New Yorker article about how different peoples’ brains process information, and it was revelatory for me. The article said that different people tend to be either ‘verbal’ or ‘visual’ thinkers. Verbal thinkers do most of their thinking through inner dialogue whereas visual thinkers think in pictures and spatial relationships and can have a hard time translating concepts into language. People aren’t exclusively one or the other — but most tend toward one or the other. After reading the article I began a deep spiral of introspection, consciously tracking how I think for over a week and I have realized that I am unequivocally both. For verbal thought my mind’s inner dialogue chatters away, but for analytical & mathematical thought it’s all visual & spatial and the only way to get clarity is to shut down my inner voice. I’ve always struggled with what I call ‘shifting gears’ which is the time I need between analytical thinking and communicative thinking, but n…