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.