This article reports on new research that has the answer:
Because they use internal cues — such as no longer feeling hungry — to stop eating, reports a new Cornell study. Americans, on the other hand, tend to use external cues — such as whether their plate is clean, they have run out of their beverage or the TV show they’re watching is over.
See full article. (Found via boing-boing.)
Harvard scientist Stephen Kosslyn studies how the brain works. And has decided to apply those insights into improving the Powerpoint presentations of the world. That resulted in the book “Clear and to the Point: 8 Psychological Principles for Compelling PowerPoint Presentations“. See this article for some of his basic ideas. Excerpt:
The Rule of Four is a simple but powerful tool that grows out of the fact that the brain can generally hold only four pieces of visual information simultaneously. So don’t ever present your audience with more than four things at once. This is a really important piece of information for people who tend to pack their PowerPoint slides with dense reams of data. Never give more than four pieces of information at once. It’s not that people can’t think beyond four ideas — it’s that when we take in the visual information on a slide we start to get overwhelmed when we reach four items.
The Birds of a Feather Rule is another good rule for how to organize information when you want to show things in groups. “We think of things in groups when they look similar or in proximity to each other,” Kosslyn pointed out. Translation into PowerPoint? If you want to indicate to your audience that five things belong in a group, make them similar by giving them the same color or shape. Or group them very close together. This sounds basic, but it often means taking your data apart and reorganizing it. Kosslyn’s co-panelist, Stanford psychologist Barbara Tversky, explained that one of the fundamental principles of data visualization is, ironically, misrepresentation in order to get at the truth.
See full article.
In a response to my post on numerology, Sanal Kumar pointed me towards this wonderful news article:
Indian brokers at the Bombay Stock Exchange are calling on the authorities to bring in religious experts to change the direction of a bronze bull statue.
They say the posterior of the bull, placed at the footsteps of the exchange building, points towards the traders which makes it inauspicious.
I’m sure you thought that last week’s market crash was because of weaknesses in the US economy, or the sub-prime crisis or something silly like that. Well, that is why this blog exists – to clear your muddled head of such misconceptions and steer you towards the right path.
See full article.