1. Clear and to the Point Psychological Principals Behind Effective Presentations Based on Clear and to the Point by Stephen Kosslyn 19/10/09

3. Presentation Success Kosslyn states that success in a presentation can be seen in the following three says: (1) Connect with your audience (2) Direct and hold their attention (3) Promote understanding & memory

4. Kosslyn’s Principles Relevance Appropriate Knowledge Salience Discriminability Perceptual Organisation Compatability Information changes Capacity limitations

5. Kosslyn’s Principles The principles are based in Kosslyn’s work in perceptual psychology They help the audience connect with your presentation They help hold the audience’s attention They promote understanding and memory

7. Relevance Communication is most effective when neither too much nor too little information is presented

8. Relevance So stay on the main point and don’t cram everything in in one go

9. Appropriate Knowledge Communication requires prior knowledge of pertinent concepts, jargon, and symbols

10. Appropriate Knowledge So pitch your presentation at what the audience already knows, build from there

11. Salience Attention is drawn to large perceptible differences

12. Salience So use differences in colour, size and shape to draw attention to information

13. Discriminability Two properties must differ by a large enough proportion or they will not be distinguished

14. Discriminability Use clear and obvious distinctions in colour, shape and size

15. Perceptual Organisation People automatically group elements into units, which they then attend to and remember

16. Perceptual Organisation Rely on people’s natural tendency to synthesize information and highlight elements that go together so that people can focus on your point

17. Compatability A message is easiest to understand if its form is compatible with its meaning

18. Read from top to bottom, left to right and say the colour of the ink of each word

19. Compatability That was a famous psychological effect called the ‘stroop’ effect Your difficulty arose when the word and colour were different, that is: not compatible

20. Information changes People expect changes in properties to carry information

21. Information changes People expect changes in properties to carry information

22. Information changes Don’t use changes in colour, shape or size unless there is a change in information People are distracted by non-informative changes

23. Capacity Limitations People have a limited capacity to retain and to process information, and so will not understand a message if too much information must be retained or processed

24. Legible Text on a clear background Use clear ‘sans-serif’ fonts (like this one) on a plain background Don’t let the background detract from the message or content Avoid ‘humorous’ fonts This is a serif font

25. Keep the slide clear and uncluttered A single piece of information on a slide is enough

26. Keep the slide clear and uncluttered A single piece of information on a slide is enough For a second piece of information, use a new slide but lighten the already shown information

27. Keep the slide clear and uncluttered A single piece of information on a slide is enough For a second piece of information, use a new slide but lighten the already shown information Avoid those dumb slide transitions!

28. Keep the slide clear and uncluttered A single piece of information on a slide is enough For a second piece of information, use a new slide but lighten the already shown information Avoid those dumb slide transitions! Use the same terms in your oral presentation as you have on the slide, but don’t just read the slide!

31. Use colour to make reinforce a message Notice that the title is a different colour from the main body. This follows from the principle of perceptual organisation – ‘Regions of the same colour will be seen as a group. Use the same colour for all titles and another colour for all text entries, which will clearly group the material into these two categories’.

32. Make sure your visuals are as informative as possible! “Construct an exploded pie graph by displacing the important slice or slices, as if a wedge of pizza had been pulled out from the pie. [...] If you decide to use an exploded pie, you must decide which part or parts to emphasize. If too many wedges are exploded, the viewers won’t know where to look”.

33. Make sure your visuals are as informative as possible!

35. Take a break!

36. Capacity Limitation Use photos and clipart to give the audience time to “come up for air.” [...] useful as a break in the steady flow of information, allowing the audience a moment to reflect and digest. This is especially the case if the photo or clipart is humorous. Or even disturbing in some way!

38. Use images relevant to your audience

40. Goals and Principles Remember the three goals: (1) Connect with your audience (2) Direct and hold their attention (3) Promote understanding & memory

41. Goals and Principles Remember the three goals: (1) Connect with your audience Principles of Relevance and Appropriate Knowledge

42. Goals and Principles Remember the three goals: (2) Direct and hold their attention Principles of Salience, Discriminability, Perceptual Organisation

43. Goals and Principles Remember the three goals: (3) Promote understanding & memory Compatibility, Information Changes, Capacity Limitations