On The Three Principal Styles of Learning

A human being acquires knowledge and skills by collecting and applying information from the outside world via the five senses. It's significantly easier to communicate information through writing, speaking, and demonstrating then it is by reproducing tastes or smells. As such, the types of learning are identified as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. While there may be olfactory learners, human society has no organized system for communicating via smells or tastes at this time.

It seems that kinesthetic learning is the most primitive type. It doesn't require more than one person to be meaningful. An isolated individual, confronted with the challenges of surviving nature, needs to figure out how things work. As the kinesthetic learner will gain the most practical value from an experience, it's reasonable to assume that their abilities to make things, relate abstract information in a meaningful way, and use physical activity to learn will best allow them to survive outside a social group. The kinesthetic learner's disadvantages in gaining knowledge arise when a hands-on environment is unavailable. In a larger social environment, say a small city, information may only be available through books, lecture, or visual media. The kinesthetic learner, needing tactile information, will be forced to work much harder to gain a meaningful level of knowledge or skill.

Auditory learning has a more complex social requirement the kinesthetic learning. At least two people are required to have meaningful communication via an auditory means. In any social unit where information needs to be passed between members, talking is a good idea. Because language is an organized system, the auditory learner needs to organize information in a coherent package before they attempt to create or share knowledge. Thus, the auditory learner needs plans, organization, and strong reasoning skills. Presumably, the auditory learner has very good communication skills, resulting from their strong grasp of language.

The visual learner has some of the advantages of both the auditory and kinesthetic learner. The visual learner can gain knowledge with language through the written word. They also have good communication skills rooted in their ability to watch reactions and use gestures clearly. The visual learner also has the ability to learn by watching a demonstration, allowing them to function well with instruction from a teacher that is a kinesthetic learner. Simply put, the visual learner finds the seen more meaningful than the unseen.