As humans we do at least one of three things with incoming sensory information that has been filtered. We delete, and/or distort, and/or generalise all sensory input. This is referred to as a Universal Modeling Process in NLP.

There are six major components to the NLP Universal Modeling Process (external experience, filters, internal representation, physiology, state, and behavior), which is an outline of the way that information perceived through the 5 senses results in a change in behavior.