How to avoid cognitively overloading your prospects

All human beings have three types of memory within their minds.

The above statement is the Atkinson–Shiffrin memory model upon which Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) is based. Having worked with Prof. John Sweller – the founding father of CLT - I have successfully used my knowledge of these memory types in the commercial design world for over 20 years.

Knowing a bit about each will help you avoid overloading your potential ideal clients.

Trains of thought

Initially, and to aid understanding – an analogy. Using the idea of “Trains of thought” we are going to explain the three types of memory. Take a look at the diagram below.

The diagram shows two “rail yards joined by a narrow bridge.”

The left-hand rail yard is?Sensory Memory, and it is capable of holding almost infinite amounts of data. Its trains are made up of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touch inputs. The catch is it can only hold that data for 0.25 – 2 secs.

The right-hand rail yard is?Long-Term Memory,?it also has almost infinite amounts of data storage. Its trains are made up of every experience you have ever processed – either consciously or unconsciously. It is able to store a lifetime of experiences, but before you all howl indignantly about how humans can’t remember everything, it does prioritise experiences that are used to succeed in that humans’ environment. It reduces ones that are irrelevant to the side tracks and can even lose them completely as it lays down new tracks.

The narrow bridge is?Working Memory, it is universally accepted to be only capable of handling 4±1 bits of new information over a 10-15 second period. OK, I will admit that there are some experts who believe this to be 7±2 “at any given moment”, but personally I don’t believe the difference is worth debating. It’s the limited nature of the bridge that matters.

?Let’s add some logic to this analogy.

You can only move tiny trains across the bridge. You have two yards that can handle massive amounts of trains. So, the following is the only way to make this work:

The Long-term rail yard requests tiny trains to be pulled across the narrow bridge every few seconds. It decides what trains are required at that instant and all other trains are ignored.

If the sensory rail yard just sent all its trains across the bridge, they would crash and fall off the bridge, lost in the fast-moving river of time running underneath. Suitably dramatic? End of analogy.

?What does this mean for you?

Long-term memory determines what the sensory memory focuses its attention on.

Translation - Individuals will select different items to focus on, depending on their past experiences.

Long-Term memory selects 3-5 bits of new information for transferring across working memory.

Translation – They will select tiny amounts of what you show and say, that make sense in their head.

Any information presented that is either irrelevant, contradictory or in excess of 3-5 bits is not stored.

Translation – Exceeding any of the prospects’ limits results in nothing going into their mind.??

?The Promised Advice.

Control how much new information is presented, so no 20 bullet points on one slide! Know what story you want to tell and break it down into smaller scenes. Think Storyboard with a few lines of dialogue. Professionally speaking I never design to a “number” of slides, I just create the number of slides needed to tell the story in brain-friendly chunks.

Understand that in any group or audience, their long-term experiences will factor in the amount of focused attention they pay, and you should design the information to recognise this. Don’t put too many complex details in front of those without expertise in the subject. I know, Doh! But you would not believe how many software companies are deep diving into codes, standards, platforms, and features in front of Investors and prospect CEO’s!

I could go on, but that may overload you.

Much more science and advice to come in this series, please follow OutSmart to get notified of the next in this series of posts. I’m enjoying them and hope you are too. Let me know in the comments.

Many thanks for reading this.

Neil

OutSmart, not outspend