into our working memory, which can be compared to a sieve. “Without rehearsal, we can only hold about four elements of information in our work- ing memory at any given time,” Sullivan said, “and information — if it is not rehearsed — is lost after 30 seconds.” Learning occurs when stimuli are processed in working memory and then stabilized in our long-term memories. Meeting planners can increase the odds of information being noticed and processed, Sullivan said, by taking advantage of the brain’s ability to integrate stimuli that come through multiple senses. When both auditory and visual channels are
Kati Quigley
“To have someone at [Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s] level know that music is important is pretty cool.”
activated, for example, learners generate two mental representations — auditory and visual — and build connections between them. “Our brains do this little miracle, that neuroscientists don’t quite understand, of compiling all the information from the different senses into one experience in real time,” Sullivan said. “The more areas of the brain that we activate, the more brain cells com- municate with each other and maintain associa- tions. Combining sensory input around a concept can really enforce learning.” But you can have too much of a good thing.
Simply piling on sensory stimulation may look good on the surface — and make for a super- ficially dazzling presentation — but massive amounts of color and sound produce a sense of overload and an inability to process information in a meaningful way, Sullivan said. Instead, you should use visual and auditory principles in ways that allow you to produce the specific experi- ences you want.
Among the key principles of brain-friendly AV:
1 Learning increases when you add images to spoken words. Sight is by far our most domi- nant sense, using up to 50 percent of the brain’s resources. Indeed, Sullivan said, 83 percent of learning occurs visually. Educational research has further shown that
audiences retain an average of about 10 percent of what a speaker says. But add visual images, and that figure shoots up to 65 percent (see graph,
“Retention & Visual Imagery,” p. 43). “Do not throw out PowerPoint!” Sullivan said. “It’s unbelievable how much visual imagery adds to our learning. But you need to use it properly.” One way to use PowerPoint improperly is to
load slides up with printed text. The research cited above, which showed a 55-percent increase in retention of information when images were added to a presentation, did not include slides with printed text. “Text is really inefficient on a screen,” Sullivan said. Our brains process text by first translating it into spoken words, but images don’t go through that step. So if you’re trying to lighten the cognitive load and aid learning, adding a lot of printed words is counterproductive. It also matters whether the images you add
match the subject the speaker is talking about. Ruth Colvin Clark, president of Clark Training & Consulting and an expert in instructional design, has written about what she terms “pumpkin slides”
— the temptation to dress up slides with decorative visuals like Halloween jack-o’-lanterns. Slides that are unrelated to the topic, according to Clark, not only don’t add any boost in learning, they actually can decrease it.
We All Scream for Large Screens Research on screen size is just beginning, but studies have shown that viewers pay more attention and have better memory of what they have seen when it appears on a large screen, compared with a smaller screen. “The larger the image,” said PSAV Presentation Services’ Greg Van Dyke, “the more powerful the emotional response.”
Studies also argue against a presentation setup where attendees are asked to toggle their attention back and forth between two screens, with the speaker in the middle. Although that configuration is common, it means that attendees have to think about where they’re looking. A better solution for presenting multiple images, Van Dyke said, is one large, wide screen, with technology blending any competing images.
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2 Sounds are more effective than images for getting attention. As sensory input, sound runs a distant second to visuals in terms of learning: 11 percent of learning is auditory. But used judi- ciously, sound is more effective than visuals at getting our attention, Sullivan said. (One of her favorite quotes about sound, she said, comes from Italian researcher Elisabetta Làdavas: “Unlike our eyes, our ears can never be shut.”) Sound can also focus our attention and make
learning more engaging, including by keeping out competing sensory stimuli. In order to be effective and to strengthen the effect of visual elements, sounds should be appropriate to the point being