The 7 networks

The seven networks

Network	Plain meaning	What it tells you
Visual	Seeing & imagery	How much the content is engaging the eyes: visual detail, motion, and mental imagery.
Somatomotor	Body & movement / voice & sound	Response to physical action, gesture, and the texture of voice and sound.
Dorsal Attention	Focused attention	How hard the viewer is deliberately concentrating. This is the focus network.
Ventral Attention	Salience & surprise	How much something is grabbing attention involuntarily. This is the alerting network.
Limbic	Emotion & reward	Emotional pull and the sense of reward or desire.
Frontoparietal	Reasoning & effort	Active thinking, problem-solving, and mental work.
Default Mode	Reflection, memory & self-relevance	Inward processing: relating content to yourself, your memories, and meaning.

How to read them

Visual rises with rich, moving, or detailed imagery; it falls on static or empty frames.

Somatomotor lifts with physical action, gesture, and the grain of a voice or a sound.

Dorsal Attention is voluntary focus: the viewer choosing to lock in.

Ventral Attention is involuntary capture: a cut, a noise, or a twist yanking attention without permission.

Limbic is the heart of emotional and reward responses; it’s the engine behind both feeling and wanting.

Frontoparietal rises when the viewer has to work to follow, decode, or reason through something.

Default Mode rises when content turns inward: memory, self-relevance, reflection, and meaning.

From networks to lenses

How these seven networks combine into the four lenses.