How many trees do you see in this photo?
And how about now?
Go ahead. Count them all, I'll wait. Hey wait!
What do you mean you're not going to
count every tree? Why not? You did it for
the first one. What changed?
I'm guessing that in the first picture
you saw individual trees but when I
panned over and you saw this part, you
saw an entire forest. Why is that? I mean,
I was standing in literally the same
place just looking somewhere else.
What's happening in our minds that makes
us switch, and what does that have to do
with presentation design? Every single
day your brain has millions of stimuli
and images to sort through. If our brain
spent its energy processing every single
little bit of data, and we were aware of
it, and had to think through all of it
life would be unbearable. Imagine if you
saw this scene and actually started
counting each blade of grass because
your brain was trying to process this by
counting up all those blades. And that
happened literally all day long with
everything. We would just be puddles of
mush unable to do anything because we'd
be just too overwhelmed with all that
data. So it's a good thing that our
brains take a look at this and the first
thought is a field of grass. That doesn't
take a lot of effort. But how does this
happen?
Why do our brains do this? Well, according
to the field of Gestalt psychology, which
has its roots starting way back in the
late 1800s, human brains like to group
things. According to Wikipedia (because I
sold back all my textbooks) the
fundamental principle of Gestalt
perception is the law of pragnanz, which
means pithy in German, which says that we
tend to order our experience in a manner
that is regular, orderly, symmetrical, and
simple. In other words,
our brains really like to simplify
things so that we see the outline or the
whole object before we see the
individual parts. Thank you brain! You're
pretty cool. The brain does this by
setting up a bunch of rules. Rules for
how to group things, how to see things.
The brain uses these rules to know
things like what belongs together and
what's separate. What to focus on first.
What order to go in. And what to ignore.
I've also heard some people refer to
Gestalt psychology as perceptual
organization, and I kind of like that
because that's what it really is all
about. It's about how our brains organize
information. Now I have something to
confess. Back when I was an early
psychology student I remember having to
learn about Gestalt psychology and
visual perception, a lot, and I always
thought it was the most boring topic in
psychology. But that's because we didn't
really learn how to use this information
in real life. It wasn't until later that
I realized we can use all these rules to
make stellar slides. And that's when it
got my full attention. He's always
watching me. Over the last few years I've
learned that when I use these rules to
their fullest potential, that learning
becomes a lot more fun and easy for my
audience. And that matters because when
presentations are fun and easy to follow
along that information becomes easier to
remember and used later on, which is the
whole point of a presentation. Right? To
get our students, and colleagues, and
peers to actually understand, remember,
and use our information. But we don't
have to reinvent coffee here.
Research on Gestalt psychology and
visual perception can give us ideas for
exactly how we can use all those rules
to make that happen. How we can use
things like tone and value, color, shape,
size, placement, motion, boldness, and
contrast. So I'm going to do a whole
series on my favorite Gestalt psychology
and visual perception principles that I
use to make effective professional
presentations. This is just the intro
video so I could explain the basics
behind these principles, where they come
from, and why I'm creating a series about
them. Next week we'll begin. For each video,
I'll explain a principle and then tell
you how to apply that in your slide
design. But if you want to get a head
start on creating better slides then
check out my free email course, Countdown
to Stellar Slides. Everything you learn
how to do in that course will work with
all of these Gestalt psychology
principles. Think about it. You could
already be making better slides by the
time my next video comes out, if you get
going now. Hey I have a special
announcement for you. If you're watching
this video the day it comes out, you
still have time to sign up for my free
live workshop that's tomorrow. Link is in
the description below.
And if it's too late, then make sure that
you sign up for my email list so you get
the next invite. Okay, back to the video.
Thanks so much for watching. If you liked
this video please share and subscribe,
and connect with me on social media. And
if you loved this video and want to help
me make more, then consider donating a
cup of coffee to my page.
Your donations allow me to keep making
videos about effective presentations. Or
hey, maybe consider me for training,
mentoring, or custom design services. It's
all tailored to the unique needs of
academics, scientists, evaluators, and
researchers. I'd love to work with you, so
take a look at the links below. See you
next time.
