TED 8: Paint Mental Pictures
Show it as well as say it: pictures, objects and vivid words, not walls of text.
The picture superiority effect and the benefit of words plus pictures are well replicated in memory and learning research.
Why it works
People remember pictures better than words alone. A photo plus a sentence works better than a slide full of bullets. Vivid language does the same when you have no slides.
How to do it
- Use one photo per slide with a few words.
- Describe scenes: who, where, what they saw.
- Bring a real object if you can.
- Use comparisons people know: as wide as a cricket ground.
What to say
Picture a sorting shed in Deesa at 6 am with 40 workers and one supervisor.
This is the dealer counter we visited. Look at the empty shelf.
Avoid
Reading bullet points off the screen. People read faster than you speak and stop listening.
Example
Instead of a table of yields, Prakash showed one photo of two fields side by side in Hassan. The farmers at the meeting understood in seconds.
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