Episode 2617 Three memory (persuasion) tips from Dr. Carmen Simon 10⧸03⧸24
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Summary
In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Carmen simon, creator of the new community on locals, to talk about three tips for being more memorable in your business, personal life, or whatever you want to do, and 3 tricks to be more persuasive.
Transcript
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everybody this is a special coffee with scott adams feature without the coffee i've got a guest
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today we were joined with dr carmen simon who has a new um a new community on locals that you could
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find at memorable.locals.com did i get that right that's correct yes and you are going to learn
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three different tricks or tips you could call them for being more memorable in your business
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or personal life or whatever you want to do but mostly business i think and three tricks to be
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more memorable which makes you more persuasive i know you all want to be more persuasive so welcome
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carmen thank you so much and welcome everyone it's um good to create memories in people's brains
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because they will act in your favor based on what they remember not on what they forget so thank you
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so much for inviting me that the sun has shifted a little bit so you disappeared in the glare of sun
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so if you can move a little bit oh there you go there we go now the part of the excitement is i'm
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using the rumble studio where i'm going to try to go to three different pieces of content and split
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screens and so there's a little bit of experimenting going on we did a little practice this should work
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so uh why don't you queue up the the first trick and maybe maybe tie it to something that's happening
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in the world so people can see how relevant it is when i created the memorable locals platform i was
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looking to find the intersection between what's going on in the world like you're mentioning and
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also brain science that helps us become memorable and persuasive and one event that caught my attention
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recently and i'm sure that everybody here joining us knows about is the astronauts that were stuck in
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the international space station and now elon musk has to go and rescue them somehow and i was reading
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an article about them and they're telling their story about having to see the shuttle move away
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from them and how hard that was to watch also they were telling us about their work and how they can do
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some of that work even upside down so those are details that are interesting but can you relate to
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working upside down not as much as a piece that i was able to relate to a little later on in the article
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where they were talking about the fact that when you work in space you have no joint pain
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working upside down versus reading about joint pain one is more relatable than than the other piece
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so that's going to be tied to a lesson a mini lesson that you're about to watch so scott is going to
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share with you and how using something that is relatable and familiar to somebody else's brain
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it's going to attract extra attention and create extra memory so we can see it in action all right we're
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going to try to go to the brief little clip that shows you that all right so if i do everything
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they discover themselves when people see themselves and their experiences reflected in the content
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it activates areas of the brain associated with self-referential processing which is connected
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to engagement and memory to make this happen avoid space travel skydiving or mountain metaphors
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they are cliche and more importantly they are not relatable in this example the design is decent
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but few people can relate to it because only a few people actually get to travel to space so the metaphor
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is too abstract instead choose metaphors or examples of a concrete relatable experience the after version
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shows a universal experience it's a simple move and a metaphor for testing new waters or starting new
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ventures so consider grounding your metaphors in common scenarios this is helpful because the brain processes
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familiar scenarios quickly and easily and your audience is likely to associate familiar scenarios
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with personal memories and emotions after all what do you relate to better thrill seeking parachute
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jumping peak climbing adventures or navigating a backyard pool without incident
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all right so so this that that reminds me very much of a humor trick which is if you're doing a story
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about if you're telling a joke let's say you're a stand-up comedian uh if you tried to tell a joke about
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all right imagine going up to the space station and you're weightless and people are going to be like
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but if you said all right you know how when you're commuting and there's always that guy who cuts you off
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and you're like oh yeah i know that so is it is that is what i'm saying kind of close to what you're
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what you're talking about it is very close and you can use this technique whether you're developing content for other people
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or whether you're consuming content yourself and you're wondering why is it that some pieces of information
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attract my attention more so than other pieces of information and i tend to remember them later a
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little bit a little bit better the moment that you can see yourself and your reflection in some
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experiences that people are describing then the attention is uh is more guaranteed and the memory is
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more likely and um those images don't always have to have to be physical images it could be powerful
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words sometimes even with descriptive words you can build a mental picture in somebody else's mind
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unfortunately what i'm seeing in business is that so many things are so abstract and so generic
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and uh even if they're at the metaphorical level like people using the space shuttle as a metaphor
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and you can't really relate to because how many of us get to fly in space and and work upside down
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as you're talking there's something hilarious happening kind of simultaneously
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which uh the audience doesn't know we we tested this we had the lighting and the sound and everything
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but the the sun uh is moving as we're talking and changing in the window and it's completely washing
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you out and i'm moving around the sun yes but but one of the things that you teach and being memorable
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is that the the mistake is the one you remember right yes so you're sort of accidentally becoming super
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memorable by the fact that the sun is chasing you around because this is a perfect example because
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anybody who's ever tried to do any kind of a zoom call you you think you've got everything set up
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and then the cat comes in or the kid comes in or the sun changes or the you know somebody starts the
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jackhammer outside yes all right so let's see if let's uh cue up the second one so the first tip we got
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what's the second one so the first tip we got which was um grounding experiences in people's relatable
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experiences and you don't say generic and cliche like the space shuttle metaphor the second one um
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dawned on me when recently apple did a very clever branding so when the world knows about ai as in
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artificial intelligence there comes apple and starts talking about apple intelligence so i like
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the twist on the familiar so the next example that you're going to see and practical guideline that
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you can use has to do with playing off of the familiar and jolting the brain out of its habituation
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all right let's do that one if my technology works the way i want it to
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ideas or services really are this slide works for several reasons here is one the image takes
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advantage of predictive coding you see the brain continuously generates predictions about sensory input
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and correct errors when reality doesn't match expectations this slide disrupts the brain's
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predictions with an unexpected image the prediction error forces the audience to pay closer attention to
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the message since the detail on the slide invites correcting prediction errors the brain is extra vigilant
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for a moment and you will get extra attention to the next slide too so can you break a pattern that the brain
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has learned to predict in your next presentation
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all right so summarize that one i like that one because it's building off of the apple in terms
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of the image as well but if you were able to notice the bit up a pair instead of the bit of apple
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that's where the slight of element of surprise appears and surprise biologically speaking is
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always bad for the brain and why is that because the brain is built to have a predictive function we
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always want to know what happens next we may not always be accurate but the coding is in there we
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want to code the prediction and when there is an error we will remember that that moment because what
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is a surprise but a failure to predict what happens next obviously through a sequence if you create
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some content on your own you can't afford that many surprises because you don't want the brain to spend
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extra energy on processing everything of it as if it's a little bit jolty but every so often if you use
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these moments they can be small but very potent in terms of attracting attention and creating a memory trace
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so would you say that simply making somebody stop and think about a thing is what's
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causing it to to be more memorable so so hypnotists always talk about repetition is what it's
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persuasive and if i see something that's spelled wrong or it's just not the ordinary way you say
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the thing i'll read the sentence then i'll read that again and i'll think huh that's not ordinary then
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i'll read it again then i'll think about it and i'll read it again and then i just remember it forever
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so so is so is the essence of the predictive coding one that if somebody's predicting it's going another
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way and it doesn't they just have to spend a little more processing on it right exactly you're going to
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go back and review it like you said and um you have that brief eureka moment that small moment of oh
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an aha type of reaction and um when uh when you have that it's almost like thinking in slow motion so
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the world just stops for for one moment of course next time you're not going to be taken by surprise
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this is why from the brain's perspective the difference between what you expect would happen and
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what actually happens is how the brain learns that's why even though biologically surprises are
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bad for us we do appreciate them because it's a learning moment it's a teachable moment i sometimes
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say that consciousness is nothing more than the difference between what you predicted would happen
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next and then what you experienced oh i like that definition that's a whole different conversation but
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i always think that that's the the essence of who we are predicting and then adjusting to the
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prediction i like that definition and also it's important to define terms correctly because
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sometimes people use surprise and novelty interchangeably but they are different novelty is
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something that you haven't seen or experienced before surprise which is where the predictive error
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happens is something that you did experience before but did not expect this is why even as you're
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about to approach some area where you know you might fall you might slip and actually do fall and slip
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part of that is going to tell your brain oh i knew it this is why i told you so with your spouses for
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instance or your friends feel so juicy to the brain because your brain could see it coming okay all right
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number three set us up for the third one visual demand versus a visual offer what's that mean so the third
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one that um we have um i was reminded of it when i was reading some articles and i know that um p diddy has been in your
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news and in your shows for uh for quite some time because of um recent stories and i was reading an
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article about him and in the article somebody had posted pictures of him looking directly at the
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viewer so his eyes are almost piercing yours whereas other pictures were showing him looking away from the
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viewer in design that's called visual demand when somebody's looking right at you versus visual offer when
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they're looking away from you but still offering a perspective that you could uh you could process
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so let's see this brief minute lesson and we can talk about it all right this this one's a little
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subtle so i've got some questions on this one in a previous video we talked about avoiding cliche
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images of people by not showing their faces if you do have to show their faces here's some things to
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consider show real people to convey authenticity this slide from a tech company shows engineers at work
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and play another example from a biotech company combines superhero bodies with real faces from an
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engineering team when you don't have photos of real people and need to use stock photos you have a
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choice you can show people looking directly at the viewer creating a visual demand this type of image
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asks you to create a relationship with the subject in contrast when you show a person looking away you
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create a visual offer this image allows the viewer to observe without needing to engage directly it can
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evoke curiosity and offer context without being so aggressive next time you include people in your
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designs consider visual demand versus visual offer since a visual demand asks the viewer to connect with the
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subject it can fall flat because the connection isn't authentic a visual offer can feel more relaxed and genuine
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all right so the some of the language um you know is a little scientific e sounding but if i if i could
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summarize that so we just watched the vp debate we i won't make this political but it's a perfect example
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where they did a split screen of the two debaters and the the photos that ended up being memes
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were with uh one of the debaters uh doing a little bit of a side eye like this and one of them looking
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straight into it the and i thought to myself that if that's the meme you know compatible with with what
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you're saying the vance was offering a softer you know sort of a side eye you know which was
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both interesting because of the side eye but also he wasn't right in your face and then the other side
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was looking right at you and and so that would be the the demand right yes yes the demand is i'm looking
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right at you be my friend vote for me love me love me yes and that's that's a tougher sell it is then
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you know i'm looking over here maybe you should look over there too exactly and that's the offer
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that you're making so you're expanding the horizons a little bit and you're coming across as as less
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aggressive this is important for us in design and obviously as we construct a lot of business content
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because of those cliche photos that i mentioned and sometimes we just cannot get away from using people
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photos for those who want to humanize a presentation in some way or some content so there are some some
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reasons but you just have to be cautious because sometimes things come across so cliche when people
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cannot possibly relate to somebody who's so happy on a monday morning being at work and looking right
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at you now uh for the audience you how many of these uh little videos where you would learn a new thing
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in just what a minute or two minutes how many of those do you have on locals now at memorable.locals.com
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so far there's a gallery of about 50 of them and i post three a week so hopefully as you decide to
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join us the gallery keeps keeps growing and you would have access to not only the science principles
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behind memorable content but one of the satisfying pieces for me is good design i think good design can
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can change the world don't you well i hope so yeah i i i often say design is destiny
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if you get design right so would you call these micro lessons they will definitely be micro lessons i
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really take great pride when i construct something and people can use that principle as early as that
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afternoon whether they design content themselves or whether you're sometimes questioning why is it that
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a piece of information that attracts my attention or stays on my mind a little bit more or strongly
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than um another piece of information right yeah and i should note for the audience that uh all of your
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stuff is based on actual science it's not somebody's opinion so so it's not like a like a body language
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expert it's more like somebody's actually studied what's what's the brain doing in these situations
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i do i am i look to see what happens uh underneath the human skull and how people process information and
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how they um eventually remember it and also in those neuroscience studies that i conduct that's why
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the design has to be impeccable because you'll be ashamed to spend so many resources on conducting a
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neuroscience study and not show the brain something that already is optimal on top of that you tweak
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things just slightly right uh you know uh speaking of faceless one here's a little anecdote just to
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just round this off years ago newsweek back when newsweek was more of a real publication uh they asked if
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i'd want to draw dilbert for the cover and they said but we haven't decided we're going to put dilbert there
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we're we're testing a female face and i said really you're going to test a comic against a real
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attractive female face and you think that's going to be close and they're like well you know could go
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either way you never know and i'm thinking this is a total waste of my time because one of the things
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i had learned long ago you can't beat a human face especially if it's female especially if it's
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especially if it's attractive there's no such thing as a comic that can beat that
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for in terms of will you pick it up and will you buy it at the newsstand so it's so important it's a
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humbling remark that you're making because even in neuroscience we've had an epiphany lately we used
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to believe that the processing of a human face is automatic so it requires a very few cognitive
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resources more recently we have the ability to take the signal from the eeg signal for instance in my
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case from the brain areas that are responsible for processing something that is a little bit heavier
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so a heavier cognitive workload and are able to superimpose it on an image so let's just say those
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cliche pictures that you showed in the mini lessons with people looking at phones and being very happy
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the moment that you have a face on there we recognize that there is cognitive processing that
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is happening right on the face so processing faces is not as automatic as we thought they would be so now
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we have choices if you really want to embed some in your in your communication just be very cautious
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because they will demand some cognitive effort i've got a hypothesis on top of all this which is if you're
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going to invent an app or some kind of consumer good and it's got lots of faces on it you're going to do
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well because you think about it facebook is literally about faces instagram faces tick tock faces uh dating is
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faces tinder is faces uh faces work if you can find a new reason just whatever that reason is to have a bunch of
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faces uh you're three quarters of your way to success because people are just drawn to faces you can't
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turn it off if you wanted to and that means we now know from neuroscience that there's engagement with
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the faces and now in light of this mini lesson you might have some choices as to whether you position them
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in front of the viewer looking right at them or being a bit less intrusive and looking away yeah there's
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you could have a whole uh science on just best way to show a face all right so uh we'll we'll keep it
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to these uh three great tips and they can find you uh um in subscription right you have a paywall up
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do you have to pay yeah there's the paywall up so there is the the seven dollars a month but um
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hopefully that's a small price for big guidelines that can make a difference and if you've got an
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employer it would be the cheapest amount of money you could ever spend to turn your employee into a
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superpower there's gonna be a lot of tips in there all right dr carmen simon they can find you at
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memorable.locals.com is there anything else you want to mention you've got a new book out uh there is
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the book it's which is called made you look and it works in concordance with the mini lessons that
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are part of the memorable locals platform and um it's also a book that has a visceral experiences
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i'm i'm really enjoying things that are tactile and as you browse through the pages you'll be
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reminded not only of some of these guidelines but um also ground during your experience is something
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that is physical which also helps with attention and memory all right let me ask the audience are you
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more likely to remember this because the lighting problems that we had and and the continual adjustments
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and the answer is yes you are and that there's the there's another thing you just learned all
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right thanks for joining and uh we'll we'll have you back and uh appreciate you taking the time thank