Sensory Acuity – Calibration

Face to face communication is a continual loop of both verbal and non verbal messages between two or more people. People trained in NLP communication skills ensure that when they communicate, all three channels are congruent i.e. their words are supported by appropriate tonal qualities and body language. This means the listener is more likely to respond. In turn the NLP trained person continually listens and observes the people who (s)he is communicating with.

Sensory Acuity

Sensory acuity enables the NLP Coach to stop ‘mind reading’ and start to have more accuracy in calibration (determining by criteria observation, not guessing) what the body language (including facial muscles and tones of voices) is telling them.

Obviously this is crucial in any person-to-person interaction and will enhance any chance of knowing that person deeply or working on a substantial level with them.

Sensory acuity can also be referred to as sensory awareness and is a fundamental pillar of NLP.

For any NLP technique to work effectively, the NLP Coach needs sensory acuity to connect with the client and notice subtle shifts in the physiology which provides clues on where the client is within the process of change.

NLP helps people to learn to develop their sensory awareness by detecting the subtle movements in another person’s physiology and voice tone. In NLP this is known as calibration which means ‘detecting differences’. The larger movements are easy to detect. It’s the finer shifts that require a high level of awareness.

If you are naturally good at reading people, i.e. knowing when they are deceitful, hiding emotions etc. you have probably developed the skill of calibration unconsciously.

Some people have their attention orientated internally which is fine for self awareness, however to detect change in others it is important to also have your attention oriented externally.

From the view of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), body language is considered, at worst, a form of mind reading and at best an artful generalization. Body Language says if you fold your arms you are closed.  What about the person sitting for a long time in a chair with no arm rests trying to get comfortable or the person who is cold?

In NLP we learn how to increase Sensory Acuity. Sensory acuity is the art of observation of other people for minute changes in their physiology.  You would take a mental snapshot of a person’s physiology thereby calibrating them and then compare it to their physiology over time. Sensory acuity skills can be useful in many situations from coaching and change work to business interactions and meetings – to notice people responding or not responding to words and actions.

When using sensory acuity we use language to describe what is actually happening. If a person’s lips turn down we say just that. We do not say the person must be sad because they frowned. The word sad and even the word frown is a label and a lips turned down may connote and denote different emotions for each person.

There are several basic things to observe when it comes to sensory acuity.  They are skin color and muscle tonus, breathing rate – depth and location, pupil dilation and focus, body posture and gestures.  Let’s look at each one a bit more in depth.

Skin Color

As a person’s blood pressure rises and lowers, due to changing emotional states brought on by changing thoughts, the skin around the neck and face (if not obscured by clothing) will change color.  This is not a drastic shift in most people. Think of it like a black and white picture – it gets darker or lighter.

Skin Tonus

Skin and the underlying muscles have a certain tonus.  As a person’s emotional state shifts their muscle tone can as well. In order for an eyebrow to be raised or a mouth to curl there are a number of muscles that must tighten and relax.  Those are 2 overt examples.  More subtle one’s might be a jaw or neck tightening or wrinkles forming or disappearing.

Breathing

People tend to breath from one of 3 locations. They either breathe from low in the torso or the stomach, from the middle of the torso, or from the upper portion of the chest. This can change as their state changes. They may shift from shallow to deep breaths and they may also shift the rate of their breaths.

Eyes

When people go in and out of certain states their eyes may dilate or change focus. You may notice a person’s eyes moving around quite a bit. This will be covered when we learn about the NLP Eye Patterns and Representational Systems.

VISUAL CUES:

Things you see in another person’s physiology

Small shifts
Skin color
Minute muscle changes (tonus)
Lower lip changes
Pupil dilation
Breathing changes

Larger shifts
Arm folding
Leg crossing
Leaning forward and back

AUDITORY CUES:

Things you hear in another person’s verbal expression

Volume
Tone  
Clearness
Speed
Pauses

SEEING MORE

You may think that the subtle changes in skin color, pupil dilation, breathing, arm and leg movement, etc. is a lot to see. If you are new to this fine level of observation you would be justified in thinking it’s a big leap, however it does get easier with practice. 

As you increase your visual awareness will soon realise that some people are more explicit than others. You will also find that each person has their own set of physiological distinctions for different experiences and emotions.

In NLP we don’t assign a universal language on body movements. Each person has their own unique body language with different types of experiences and emotions. In NLP we calibrate people as they access different experiences. By doing this you will recognize each individual’s characteristics for the various states they access and more accurately be able to read their non verbal signals.

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