Distinction between Lead, Representation, and Reference Systems

Eye access cues are often misrepresented or misinterpreted. Here, some more subtle distinctions are introduced.

It is necessary to distinguish between a primary representation system, a lead system, and a reference system.

The primary representation system is related to the process of receiving information, while the lead system is more about remembering and retrieving the information.

The primary representation system can be recognized, among other things, by the predicates chosen to describe how the data was originally taken in.

The lead system can be identified by the eye movements a person makes while accessing information from long-term memory (LTM). The reference system refers to the decision about whether the retrieved information is true or not, once it has been accessed and brought into consciousness. The reference system is the system someone uses to answer the question:

Is that really the case? Very often, the reference system is the kinesthetic system.

It just feels right!

Definitions from the NLP Dictionary:

Representation Systems

The modalities by which we receive, store, and encode information in our brains. The representation systems are also referred to as perception systems or levels of perception that we use to perceive the environment.

They are the modes of the five senses:

Seeing (the visual system, visual),
Hearing (auditory),
Feeling (kinesthetic),
Smelling (olfactory), and
Tasting (gustatory) – abbreviated: VAKOG.

The sense of touch (tactile, haptic) is usually not treated as a separate sense but is instead assigned to feeling and bodily sensations.

Lead System

The lead system (also called guidance system) is the representation system a person uses to internally access information. The lead system sometimes differs from the representation system used to consciously access information (this system may be the preferred representation system).

An example is the process of remembering:

If you ask someone about a past experience, the person might first activate a visual image and then internally hear the dialogue that was spoken at the time. (In NLP, this sequence is called a memory strategy.) The visual system here is the lead system, and the auditory one is the preferred system. The visual image is necessary to access the memory in the first place, and further "thinking" then takes place in the auditory system. A lead system that differs from the preferred system is usually an unconscious system: the process of accessing information occurs on an unconscious level. The lead system of other people can be recognized through posture, gestures, breathing, and eye movements.

Reference System

The reference system internally checks the accuracy of an experience and the truth of retrieved information. For example, a person might respond to a question about a past event with the following memory strategy:

First, the question is internally commented on (auditory lead system),
then visually represented (visual preferred system), and
the result is checked emotionally. This person therefore has a kinesthetic reference system. In many cases, the reference system is unconscious. It can be identified, among other things, by carefully observing eye movement patterns.