Reality Check: How We Create Meaning

Remember the 2015 debate over what color that infamous dress was? Or the “Yanny” vs. “Laurel” debate in 2018? Debates like these point to the fact that reality isn’t as solid or universal as we might think it is. So how exactly do we create meaning? And why does this matter for presenters?

Let’s travel inside the human brain to talk about how we create meaning. Along the way, we’ll come to realize that even though our audience members all hear the same presentation, it doesn’t mean they’ll all hear the same presentation.

The 2-Way Flow

Before digging into this topic, I believed that reality was something “out there” that we picked up on through sensory stimuli. And it is, but only to an extent. We use our eyes, ears, skin, and more to understand the world around us. But meaning isn’t just created by the sensory information flowing in from outside our bodies.

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist who discovered that when we encounter any given stimulus, something interesting happens inside our brains. When we take in “reality” with our eyes, the sensory input is only one part of how we make sense of what we are seeing. It turns out that there is 6 times more information flowing from inside our brains than there is coming in from our eyes. Eagleman says, “And that suggests that in any one moment, what we experience as seeing relies less on the light streaming into our eyes and more on what’s already inside our heads.”

Input Vs. Interpretation

This brings us to an important distinction: input versus interpretation. Eagleman says that “instead of using my senses to rebuild my reality from scratch every moment, I’m comparing sensory information with a model that I’ve already constructed—updating it, refining it, correcting it . . . but no one’s having an experience of objective reality, of the world that really, truly exists . . . The brain is the universe’s ultimate storyteller. We believe whatever our brains serve up to us. It’s possible that every brain tells a different narrative.”

So when you stand up to give a presentation, everyone in the audience pretty much encounters the same input. They hear your voice, watch you present, and see your slide deck. But remember that there is 6 times the information already inside their brains meeting up with that sensory input to create meaning. So we might say that interpretation is 6 times more powerful than input.

How to Control the Interpretation

If what Eagleman says is true, and far it be from me to doubt a neuroscientist, this means that presenters have to work not only to manage the input of the presentation, but also the interpretation of it. Which seems a little impossible, right? Granted, it’s tough. But if you practice great audience analysis and empathy, you can create presentations which are sensitive to other viewpoints and other lived experiences.

It starts by realizing that what seems like common sense or given reality to you, might not be true for others. You might find it helpful to use a technique that Brené Brown uses. She says it helps to ask, “What is the story that I’m telling myself, the story that I’m making up?” As a speaker, you need to be focused not only on the story you want to tell, but also on the stories your audience members might be telling as a result of the input of your presentation. Their interpretations.

Once you develop and deliver presentations with a more flexible view of reality in mind, you can better guide the internal narrative that some of your audience members might be experiencing.

Do your presentations need a reality check? Find out how our experts can help using our proven formula for great presentations.

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