I learned a
few things when I was in graduate school studying cognitive and experimental
psychology that have proven useful to me when I'm trying to send a message that
will stick, either in a presentation or a blog.
Knowing about human beings' limited short-term memory and attention comes
in quite handy. These limitations are hard-wired into us, regardless of how
smart a particular person is. So, here are three important things I learned
about making points memorable.
First, people
will remember the first and last thing you tell them. It is much harder to remember what's in the
middle. This is caused by a combination of the primacy effect (remembering the
first thing on a list) and the recency effect (remembering what you heard
recently or last). Even though human short-term working memory can hold seven
bits of information (plus or minus two), that information rapidly dissipates
and is gone in seconds or is pushed out my more incoming data. That's why you
can't remember the names of people when you first meet them at a party or
retain a phone number long enough to write it down if there isn't a pencil
handy. You are pushing your audience's limits if you ask them to remember more
than three points, unless you give them handouts as memory aids. That may be the reason for Death by
PowerPoint: We have more than three things we wish our audience would remember,
so we blast it out in 24 point font.
