Know Your Audience’s Brain
NAI National Interpreter’s Workshop, November 2014
Fran McReynolds, CIT, CIM
What the brain loves and ideas to try:
The brain loves movement
Movement enhances brain activity—it can be whole-body or just hands
Scribble or draw; manipulate objects; do large motor activity
Your specific ideas:
The brain loves novelty
Novelty makes the brain sit up and pay attention (note that the attention span at full concentration for
adults is 15-20 minutes)
Change the pace; Use something familiar in a new way; Do something unexpected—break into song,
tell a joke, toss a balloon; Create something—tell stories, build something, draw, etc.
Your specific ideas:
The brain loves context and patterns
Patterns include putting things into categories or organizing them in some way
Sort and categorize; Help audience recall past events or knowledge and connect it to what’s being
learned or talked about or experienced; Look for patterns in your resource (see next page)—categorize
things
Your specific ideas:
The brain loves challenge and feedback
Challenges and feedback produce endorphins—feel-good chemicals that are like Velcro on the brain
Examples of challenge: problem solving, critical thinking, relevant projects, complex activities
Senses and emotions provide feedback
 Engage all senses—listen to music, read aloud, provide a variety of textures to touch as well as a
variety of sights, smells, tastes (all of these provide internal feedback)
 Emotions help provide internal feedback and engage meaning. Emotions may be evoked by relating
to others, setting goals, memories, and evaluating as well as many of the things above.
Your specific ideas:
About learning/brain development in general (written for students, but applicable to interpretation)
Intrinsic motivation, or self-motivation (crucial for maintaining attention or interest) is increased when:
1. There are choices for the learner—content, timing, process, environment, or resources
2. It is relevant to the learner—make it personal—relate to family, situation, love, hopes and
desires, health, etc. (Things that make sense and have meaning are most likely to stick.)
3. It is engaging—make it emotional, energetic; make it physical, use learner-imposed goals or
deadlines, use positive peer pressure
Examples of pattern types
Linear repetition
Linear patterns repeat indefinitely in any direction along a line
Examples: beads on a necklace, woven materials, wallpaper borders, stripes on clothing,
zippers, walking footprints, musical rhythms, the meter of poetry, the passage of a day, the
changing seasons, cycles
Spirals
Spirals wrap around a fixed point at a changing distance
Examples: spider webs, nautilus shells, watch springs, woven baskets, and coils of
rope
Many types, but 2 common: Archimedean (like a coiled rope) and the golden
spiral (like a snail shell—differential growth due to more room to grow farther away from
axis).
Branching
Branching patterns start from a single point and grow outward in many directions
Branching patterns are economical—they reach a large surface area using the
shortest path. Formed by organisms, systems, and structures that distribute
or collect large volumes of material. Natural systems, especially those
involving liquids, have branching patterns. Examples: river systems (water
transport), lightning (electrical dissipation), and plants (nutrient, gas, and water transport),
circulatory system, roads.
Symmetry
There are twenty-four two-dimensional symmetries; bilateral/mirror and
radial/rotational symmetry are two common symmetries. Bilateral/mirror
symmetry: halves that are mirror images. Axis can be vertical or horizontal. Mirror
symmetry examples: human body, shapes and/or markings in many plants &
animals. Radial/rotational symmetry: repeating pattern around a center point (3
repetitions is minimum). Radial/rotational symmetry examples: starfish, flowers,
snowflakes, tile work, basket patterns, kaleidoscopes.
Tessellation formations
Regular tessellations are made by one repeating shape. There are only three shapes
that create regular tessellations: triangles, squares, and hexagons.
Irregular tessellations can be made from a variety of repeating
interlocking shapes as long as they fit together without gaps or overlaps.
Introduction
Brain-Based Techniques to Think About When Developing a Program
Good Practice
Purpose
Start with a hook
Focuses the
audience on the
topic
Novelty makes the brain
pay attention
State learning
objective(s)
ID what needs to
be learned
Know what they should
learn and how they will
know they’ve learned it
Purpose/Theme
Explanation of
importance
“So what?”
Give information,
sources, skills
Builds interest and
established meaning
Most important
information first
Group
information
logically
Body
Chunk information
Conclusion
Relationship to Brain
Research
Establishes relevance and
fosters transfer
Practice
Review
information or
practice what was
learned
Closure
Allows
participants/
audience time to
mentally
summarize and
internalize new
learning
Helps audience
remember/retain
critical attributes
Working memory sees a
set of data as a single
item because of past
experience—easier to
remember and learn.
Enhances sense and
meaning to help
retention
dendrites grow between
nerve cells, increase
connections and makes
the neural network
stronger (practice makes
permanent)
Last chance to attach
sense and meaning, thus
improving retention.
Example
Think about the last time you
were bitten by a mosquito.
During this program you’re
going to learn about how
habitat conservation helps to
control mosquitoes.
By the end of the program
you’ll know at least 4 ways that
your daily routines influence
habitat conservation.
Habitat conservation is key to
human survival.
Whatever it is that you want
your audience to remember 5
years from now.
Group items together when
learning a procedure (see next
page)
Pair the familiar (peanut butter
& jelly)
Categorize (see next page)
Use knowledge to create
something, solve a problem, or
apply it to another topic.
“I’ll be quiet now while you
think about (theme)”
Thought question, asked
rhetorically:
“In the next minute, 4 acres of
habitat will be lost. What will
you do to help slow the pace?”
“Think of one or two things
you’ll take away from this
program.”
Chunking Information
Group items together when learning something new
 Group items in a sequence, rehearse mentally, practice
o Learning to canoe—what to do when getting in, what to do when moving, what to do
when getting out
o Learning to identify a plant—what parts to look at—vegetative parts, reproductive parts
 Create acronyms with familiar words or phrases
Categorical chunking
 Advantages and disadvantages (energy sources, environmental actions, transportation, etc.)
 Similarities and differences (owls and hawks)
 Structure and function (parts with different functions—animal cell, short story)
 Taxonomies biological, learning (cognitive, affective, psychomotor)
 Arrays (less ordered than taxonomies, based on observable feature. Humans by learning style,
personality type; dogs by size, shape, fur length; clothing by material, season, gender)
A Few Cognitive Biases
A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in judgment whereby inferences about the world are made in an
illogical fashion. (We all do at least some of these things.)
1. Confirmation bias—we tend to give more credence to people or ideas who agree with our
views; similar to ingroup bias
2. Ingroup bias—oxytocin, a neurotransmitter, helps us bond with people in our own group while
making us suspicious, fearful, or disdainful of others
3. Neglecting probability—we do not properly assess risk. We tend to feel less safe in an airplane
than in a car, even though it is statistically far more dangerous to be in a car
4. Observational selection—we suddenly notice things we haven’t noticed before and assume that
the frequency has changed—contributes to thinking that things cannot be coincidences
5. Status-quo bias—we tend to be apprehensive of change, assuming that change might make
things worse
6. Current moment—we would rather experience pleasure now and face the consequences later
7. Objects have essences—we often believe that there is an invisible value that an object gets from
its provenance (John Lennon’s piano)
8. Symbols have power—we might believe that heavy things are more important, we gravitate
toward people and things that share our names or initials, we anthropomorphize
9. Actions have distant consequences—superstitions, rituals, taboos
Selected resources
Hutson, Matthew. (2012). The 7 laws of magical thinking: How irrational beliefs keep us happy, healthy,
and sane. New York: Hudson Street Press.
Jensen, Eric. (1998). Teaching with the brain in mind. Alexandria: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development.
Kahneman, Daniel. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Sousa, David A. (2001). How the brain learns. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press, Inc.
Videos to investigate
Fast and slow thinking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiTz2i4VHFw
Selective attention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY