We all use all three cognitive modes—but one of them tends to shape how we experience the world more than the others.
Start by reading the three primary cognitive groups below:
Each person has a Dominant Mode that drives how they take in and process information, a Secondary Mode that supports or balances it, and a Tertiary Mode that often gets neglected or distorted.
These combinations create six unique Cognitive Stacks. This quiz will help you identify the one that fits you best.
Pick the one that feels most like you. Don’t overthink it—just go with the one that pulls at you or feels familiar.
Once you’ve chosen your Dominant Mode, read the two deeper descriptions below to see which stack fits best.
These questions are less obvious to answer - we all think in these different ways - you want to choose the one you use most. You may need to read through all the descriptions.
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You learn by doing. Your first instinct is to move, touch, test, build, or physically sense your way through a problem. You may not always have the words right away, but your body knows what feels true. You trust experience over theory, and you often figure things out in real time, through action or feedback. When you're stuck, movement helps. You may struggle in environments that prioritize abstract explanation over hands-on engagement. You're at your best when grounded in real-world experience—but how you process that experience (visually or auditorily) affects how it turns into understanding.
KAV → The Embodied Messenger
You also begin with the body—but what follows is story and sound. Once you’ve tested or sensed something, you need to talk it out, hear it, or organize it into steps. You might rehearse lines in your head, pace while processing, or narrate your thoughts aloud. You often translate feelings into language—sometimes poetic, sometimes practical. You're likely a strong communicator, but only after your body gives the green light. You may struggle in fast, conceptual environments that skip over the somatic layer. Others may experience you as warm, grounded, and articulate—once you've had time to process and speak.
KVA → The Architect of Flow
You start with the body, then move toward systems. You learn best when you can feel something out physically, then organize it into a bigger pattern. Once you've got a gut sense, you translate it into structure—visual maps, abstract models, or spatial logic. You’re likely good at fixing, designing, or engineering things because you bridge the physical and the conceptual. You may struggle when forced to stay verbal too long, or when ideas stay ungrounded. Others may not realize how deep your thinking runs because you tend to express it through action or visual structure, not long explanations.
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Your mind runs on language. You process the world through inner dialogue, rhythms, structured arguments, and spoken or written words. You likely narrate your own thoughts, solve problems by talking them through, and reach clarity by refining your phrasing. You break things down into steps and organize complexity into linear sequences. But language is just the beginning. Once the verbal layer is in place, your body and intuition either confirm it—or reject it. That deeper verification process shapes how you trust your insights, and whether your ideas stay theoretical or become fully embodied.
AKV → The Verbal Visionary
You think in words, and then check for gut-level truth. You likely start by framing the problem clearly—defining terms, setting boundaries, making arguments. But verbal clarity isn’t enough. Your body needs to feel the answer. If it doesn’t land physically, it doesn’t feel real. You may revise your theories or language repeatedly until they ring true at a deeper level. This gives your thinking both rigor and integrity. You can appear grounded, structured, and precise—especially when given time to work something through. But if your body says no, even the best argument won't convince you.
You begin with sound and story, but you move toward vision. You process through rhythm, phrasing, or dialogue—but the end goal is often insight, connection, or big-picture clarity. You might think aloud, riff with others, or write to discover what you believe. But once the verbal layer settles, you step back to see the full map—how the parts connect. You may come across as persuasive, expressive, even theatrical—but under that is a drive to see the truth behind the language. You can struggle with abstraction overload or scattered thought if you don’t slow down and align the vision.
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You think in images, spatial patterns, or abstract connections. You often see how things fit before you can explain them. You may visualize structures, systems, or metaphors—then work backward to translate what you see into language or action. This can make you seem brilliant or confusing, depending on whether others can follow your internal map. You’re driven by clarity and alignment—when something clicks, you know it’s right. But getting it out of your head and into the world can be the hard part. How you do that—through motion or words—defines how others experience your insight.
VAK → The System Whisperer
You also see patterns first, but then move into words. You want to name what you see, structure it, explain it clearly. You may love metaphors, models, or diagrams—but you’re also driven to communicate them. You often speak in fully formed frameworks, but may get frustrated when others can’t follow. Once you’ve named something clearly, your body often relaxes—so you may talk to process, even if the insight started visually. You can be persuasive, systematic, and surprisingly articulate—but only when the visual insight has crystallized. In stress, you may become tangled in language, trying to force clarity too early.
VKA → The Grounded Seer
You process through vision first, then move it into the body. You may sense the shape of a solution, visualize a process, or see what’s out of alignment—before anything is said or done. But you don’t stop at theory. You bring it into the real world, testing whether it holds up through action, rhythm, or movement. Your learning is holistic—seeing the big picture, then grounding it. You may seem visionary but deeply practical, capable of elegant solutions that actually work. At your best, you bridge imagination and implementation. When stressed, you may over-theorize and delay taking physical action.
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