From the category archives:

Presentation myths

Learning Styles: What every presenter ought to know

August 3, 2010

Before Copernicus we believed that the the earth was the center of the universe and that the sun revolved around the earth. That’s what it looked like and it made sense. But science showed us that it’s not the case.
Today, many people believe in learning styles theory. At face value it makes sense and it’s [...]

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After Mehrabian: Nonverbal communication research

August 18, 2009

In the communications and presentations industry there are generally just two research studies that are quoted when talking about the importance of nonverbal communication. They were carried out by Albert Mehrabian and his colleagues in 1967. Forty-two years ago.
Mehrabian misinterpretation
In the second of those studies, Mehrabian proposed the 7-38-55% formula. He suggested that the perception [...]

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Mehrabian’s research: The secondary misinterpretation

June 6, 2009

Bert Decker has written a comprehensive reply on his blog to my first post on the Mehrabian myth. However, I disagree with his interpretation of Mehrabian’s research and in a moment I’ll show you why.
But before I do, I want to say that I greatly appreciate Bert and his contribution to the presentation and public [...]

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Mehrabian and nonverbal communication

June 2, 2009

Mehrabian is often quoted as saying that the meaning of a message is communicated by:

Your words 7%
Your tone of voice 38%
Your body language 55%.

This interpretation of Mehrabian has been comprehensively debunked many times, but still it persists. In this post, I’m going to:

Describe the experiments Mehrabian carried out, and
Identify the limitations of Mehrabian’s research

Mehrabian’s experiments
The [...]

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The myth of learning styles

May 26, 2008

Many presenters have heard about learning styles and want to know how they can take individual learning styles into account when they present. But the learning styles model has no research that backs it up:
“from a neuroscientific point of view [the learning styles approach to teaching] is nonsense”. (Susan Greenfield, specialist in brain physiology, quoted [...]