Findings were consistently unsupportive: predicate-matching barely moved counselling outcomes, and stable preferences proved elusive. Sharpley's 1980s reviews summarised the failure bluntly. The salvageable remnant: people do shift between representational channels, and skilled communicators track and match that shifting — as state-dependent behaviour, not fixed type.
Representational Systems Research
The "preferred representational system" (PRS) hypothesis — that people have a stable dominant sensory channel — was tested across multiple studies from the late 1970s onward.
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ShriViral Manek, Institute of NLP India · reviewed 30 Sept 2026