100 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People

100 THINGS EVERY PRESENTER NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT PEOPLE SECOND EDITION

SUSAN WEINSCHENK, PH.D.

100 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People Second Edition

Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D.

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Copyright © 2018 by Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D.

Written, Edited, Proofed, Designed, and Laid-out by Susan Weinschenk Ph.D. and Guthrie Weinschenk, J.D. 2024

Version 1.1

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, reprinted, or copied without the prior written consent of the The Team W, Inc. Consent is easily granted if you email info@theteamw. com.

If you would like to refer to parts of the book please cite Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D., CEO and Behavioral Scientist at The Team W, Inc.

This book is sold As-Is, without warranty.

Use of any trademarks in this book are used in an editorial fashion.

ISBN Numbers:

ISBN: 978-1-963902-03-7

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is made possible by all the people who have come to my speeches, presentations, and classes over many years. Thanks for helping me learn how to be a better presenter and thanks for the opportunity to experiment with new ideas.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my family, who endure my endless talking about whichever book I’m working on, who put up with my habit of moving from room to room as I write, and who allow me to give up weekends and holiday events because I have to work on a chapter. Your support keeps me going!

HOW TO USE PSYCHOLOGY TO BE A BETTER PRESENTER

There are always three speeches for every one you actually gave: the one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.

​ ​ —Dale Carnegie

Which of the following is true of you?

A) After you give a presentation, you usually feel that it was quite successful.

B) After you give a presentation, you are usually tormented by all the things you should have done or said differently.

If your answer was A, then this book might not be for you. Not because you are already a great presenter, but because you might not be motivated enough to learn what you need to know about people to be a better presenter.

I’ve given hundreds of presentations in my career, and I’m a popular speaker. People say things like, That was the best presentation I’ve ever attended. And I’m grateful for these kind words. But I’m never satisfied. Although I usually think that there were several aspects of the just-completed presentation that were quite good, I am my own worst critic. Maybe I’m too hard on myself. All I know is that practically before the presentation is done, I’ve already identified what to change.

Sometimes when I’m coaching people on presentation skills they will say something like, I’m not a great presenter. I don’t know if I’ll ever be a great presenter. I’m never satisfied with the presentations I give. That’s good, I respond, now I know that you have the capability of being a great presenter. Like any great artist or performer, great presenters are constantly striving to improve their performance and their craft.

In his book Drive, Daniel Pink talks about the research on motivation and mastery. People are motivated to master a topic or skill. The drive for mastery keeps us working at a task. But, according to Pink, mastery can never be reached—it can really only be approached.

Every day around the world there are millions of presentations delivered. Some are great, some are mediocre, and some are just downright boring. How much better would the world be, how much more inspired would your audiences be, and how much change could you make in the world if you improved the quality of your presentations?

There are two sides to every presentation. You are speaking, but an audience is listening. If you want to give a great presentation, you need to know a lot about people. The more you understand how people think, learn, listen, see, react, and decide, the better able you will be to put together a presentation that informs, inspires, and motivates. When you learn about others, you’ll know how to craft and deliver a powerful presentation. Every powerful presenter is actually a behavioral scientist. If you want people to pay attention and also to act, then you need to know the latest brain and behavioral science and how to build a presentation around what we know about what grabs attention and motivates people.

When I wrote the first 100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People it was 2012. I had summed up the essential information on what presenters need to know about people in those 100 things. But in the years since then a lot has happened. Our understanding of the brain and behavioral science has expanded. We now know that:

When we listen to a story our brain thinks that WE are experiencing the events in the story.

There are two kinds of thinking, and they are very different.

We are not born with brains that know how to read -- our brains re-purpose other areas of the brain to learn how to read.

If the font of text is hard to read information is learned and remembered better, not worse.

Our peripheral vision decides where our central vision should look. 

And many other amazing things that are in this second edition.

In addition to the newest and latest research, I’ve expanded the information on how to craft a great presentation and re-arranged the things and the chapters. 

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I’ve enjoyed researching and writing it. And I hope that this book will help you take your presentations to the next level.  

Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D.

Edgar, Wisconsin, USA

August, 2018

HOW PEOPLE SEE, READ AND LISTEN

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

​ ​— Robertson Davies

Recent research offers exciting insights into how people see and hear and how the brain interprets perceptual data. Use the latest research on the brain to plan your presentation and choose the best visuals. 

#01: MULTIPLE SENSORY CHANNELS COMPETE

Imagine that you are driving while listening to the radio and talking to a passenger sitting next to you. You are processing multiple sensory channels simultaneously. You are watching (the road), listening (to the radio and your friend), and thinking and talking. This doesn’t sound too difficult. People process multiple sensory channels all the time. But there is a limit. The more channels you try to process at the same time, the trickier multichannel processing becomes. If one of the channels becomes complicated or difficult to process, then processing more than one channel can get very challenging. For example, what if there is a sudden traffic jam that you have to negotiate. It will start to get hard to pay attention to, or remember, what your friend is saying.

Listening and Reading Don’t Mix Well

During a presentation, there are two sensory channels that are most active: auditory and visual. Your audience might be looking at you while also looking at your slides. They are also listening to what you’re saying. If the slides are visuals that are easy to understand—such as photos, or diagrams that add extra context and meaning to the presentation—then the multiple channels are a positive experience for them. But if, instead, the slides are difficult to read or complicated, then they will be distracted. Don’t use slides just because you think you should. Only use slides if they enhance your communication.

In particular, the sensory combination of slides that are filled with text and a speaker who is talking is simply a bad combination. In order to understand the slides, your audience has to read. As soon as they are reading, they are not listening. Listening and reading are two sensory channels that compete with each other. Figure 1.1 shows an example of a slide that requires too much reading. Figure 1.2 is a version of the slide with just brief summary text.

Figure 1.1: Too much for people to read

Figure 1.2: Less to read

Takeaways

You don’t have to use slides in a presentation. Put your presentation together without slides first, then decide if any of your points would be enhanced by the use of a visual example or illustration.

If you use slides, use them for simple photos, diagrams, or illustrations.

Don’t put more than a few words of text on a slide. If people are reading, then they aren’t listening to you.

Know what to call slides with a lot of text on them? Your notes! If you feel you need slides with text, it’s probably because you need notes. Don’t show the audience your notes.

#02: THERE’S A SPECIAL PART OF THE BRAIN JUST FOR RECOGNIZING FACES

Imagine that you’re walking down a busy street in a large city when you suddenly see the face of a family member. Even if you were not expecting to see this person, and even if there are dozens or even hundreds of people in your visual field, you will immediately recognize him or her as your relative. You’ll also have an accompanying emotional response, be it love, hate, fear, or otherwise.

Although the visual cortex is huge and takes up significant brain resources, there is an additional part of the brain whose sole purpose is to recognize faces. Identified by Nancy Kanwisher (1997), the fusiform face area (FFA) allows faces to bypass the brain’s usual interpretive channels and helps people identify faces more quickly than objects. The FFA is also near the amygdala, the brain’s emotional center.

People with autism don’t view faces with the FFA

Research by Karen Pierce (2001) showed that people with autism don’t use the FFA when looking at faces. Instead, they use pathways in the brain and visual cortex that are normally used to recognize and interpret objects but not faces.

Faces Capture Attention and Communicate Emotion

Because of the FFA, people will pay attention to faces. Consider using photos and pictures of people’s faces on your slides. In order to stimulate the FFA, the face needs to look like a face; in other words, it needs to have two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. For maximum recognition, use faces that are full front. Faces at an angle or in profile are not as easily recognized by the FFA.

Don’t use faces that are distorted unless you want to convey a negative message. One of my clients once used a face that was made up of the left half of one person’s face and the right half of another’s. It was attention getting, but also very creepy.

Because the FFA is so close to the amygdala, faces communicate emotion directly to the emotional centers of the brain. A picture of someone showing emotion—whether happy, sad, disgusted, or afraid—will communicate more quickly and deeply than words can.

People are born with a preference for faces

Research by Catherine Mondloch (1999) shows that very young children (newborns less than an hour old) have a preference for looking at something that has facial features.

Takeaways

Use photos or drawings of faces to grab attention and communicate emotion. 

For maximum impact, have the face looking straight out at the audience.

#03: PEOPLE PREFER SYMMETRY

If you are choosing images for visuals in a presentation, then consider people’s preference for symmetry.

Take any object—a photo of a face or a drawing of a circle or a seashell—and draw a line down the middle either horizontally or vertically. If the two halves on either side of the line are identical, then the object is symmetrical. 

Show me your DNA

People rate symmetrical faces as more attractive. The theory is that this preference has to do with an evolutionary advantage of picking a mate with the best DNA. 

Figures 3.1 and 3.2 show two people with different amounts of bilateral symmetry. The man in Figure 3.1 has a face that is fairly asymmetrical. The man in Figure 3.2 has a face that is more symmetrical.

Figure 3.1 An asymmetrical face.

Figure 3.2 A fairly symmetrical face.

Steven Gangestad (2010) at the University of New Mexico has researched symmetry and shown that both men and women rate people with more symmetrical features as more attractive. But symmetry isn’t only about faces: bodies can be more or less symmetrical, too. 

So why do people find symmetry to be more attractive? Gangestad says it may have to do with oxidative stress. In utero, babies are exposed to free radicals that can cause DNA damage. This is called oxidative stress. The greater the oxidative stress there is, the greater the asymmetry in the face and/or body. From an evolutionary and unconscious viewpoint, people look for partners who have no DNA damage. Symmetrical features are a clue that someone has less DNA damage. As further proof, research shows that men who are rated more attractive have fewer oxidative stress chemicals in their blood.

So, when deciding on an image to put in your visuals, for example, choose pictures of people who are more symmetrical than less, since those people will be viewed as more attractive.  

If you must use a particular person, then evaluate their face and body symmetry. If the person has a symmetrical face and body, then use a photo showing them straight on. If the person lacks facial or body symmetry, use a profile view.

Is symmetry only for Mars (for men)?

Men prefer symmetry in bodies, faces, and just about everything else, including everyday items, abstract shapes, art, and nature. But research by Kathrine Shepherd and Moshe Bar (2011) showed that women prefer symmetry in faces and bodies, but not as much as men for everything else. 

If you’re presenting to a primarily male audience, then pay special attention to symmetry, whether it’s in faces, bodies, natural or manmade objects—try to use symmetrical objects and show them in an equal right/left and top/bottom view. Men will find symmetrical images most appealing.

If you’re presenting to a primarily female audience, then symmetry in faces and bodies of people is the most important. You don’t have to be as concerned with making sure other objects are symmetrically displayed.

Why do people prefer symmetry in objects? 

There might be an evolutionary advantage for preferring symmetry in a mate, but why do people prefer symmetry in objects? Some researchers have proposed that the brain is predisposed to look for symmetry, and so people see symmetrical objects faster and make sense of them faster. The theory is that this visual fluency with symmetrical objects makes people feel as though they prefer the objects. They may just find them easier to see and understand. But why this is true for men and not for women remains a mystery.

Is there any advantage to using asymmetry?

Does the research on symmetry mean that your visuals should always be perfectly symmetrical? 

If you design a symmetrical layout, then you know that people will perceive it quickly and will more likely prefer it—especially if your audience is men. 

On the other hand, if you go with an asymmetrical layout, then people it may grab attention.  It’s a trade-off between attention and preference.

Takeaways

When you want to use pictures of people that your audience will find attractive, make sure those people have symmetrical faces and bodies.

When your audience is primarily men, use symmetry for most objects. When your audience is primarily women you can use asymmetry for images that are not people.

If you want to surprise or grab attention use asymmetry. 

#03: PEOPLE PREFER SYMMETRY

If you, as the presenter, turn and look at the screen behind you, then your audience will look at the screen too. This is a good thing if you are trying to draw the audience’s attention to something on the screen. But if you keep looking at the screen behind you because you are nervous or because you have forgotten what is on the screen, then you are just distracting the audience from looking at you. Even if you want people to look at the screen, you don’t want them looking at it all the time. You are the presenter, and you want to keep the audiences’ focus on you as much as possible.

A good set-up is to have a monitor in front of you that only you, not the audience, sees. Then you won’t have to keep turning around and looking at the screen behind you. Some of the best presenters and public speakers are so practiced with their presentation that they don’t have to look at any screen at all. I’ve seen presenters subtly click a remote in their hand that you can’t see, without any monitor in front of them. They know what comes next and what is appearing on the screen behind them. They are so confident that they just smoothly continue talking through every slide.

Takeaways

Don’t look at the screen behind you unless you want the audience to focus on the screen.

Have a monitor in front of you so you can see what your audience sees and you don’t have to turn around.

#05: VISION IS FIRST AMONG THE SENSES

Half of the brain’s resources are dedicated to seeing and to interpreting what we see. Maybe this is why presenters spend so much time and energy working on their PowerPoint slides, often at the expense of honing the message or practicing their talk. Just because vision is so important doesn’t mean that it should be the main channel for your message. And it certainly doesn’t mean that your PowerPoint slides should take all your thought, time, and energy. In fact, people will be paying much more attention to you, the room, and the other people in the room. Visuals can enhance what you say—maybe—but they aren’t all that there is.

Because vision is so important, you actually need to minimize what you show, since it will interfere with other channels, such as the auditory. In order for what you are saying to be heard and listened to over what is going on visually, you actually need to minimize visual distraction. In order to make sure that people are paying attention to what you are saying, you should have LESS visual stimuli.

Make sure images fit the message

If you use a picture or photo as a visual on your PowerPoint slide, make sure that the visual matches the message. Sometimes presenters go overboard in the other direction: They get the message that they shouldn’t use too much text, so they have dozens of slides with pictures and photos. Don’t use too many pictures and don’t use pictures that don’t match what