By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It is one of the most enshrined principles of human communication: The audience and the speaker should be locked in eye contact in order for the best persuasion to take place. Public speaking teachers give that advice to students and jury consultants give that advice to attorneys and witnesses: Look […]
Don’t Worry About the Jury’s Eye Contact (Worry About Your Own) Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Litigators have many options for using on-screen visuals in opening statement. They can fire up the Elmo document camera, they can call up and highlight documents using TrialDirector or Sanction, or they can do what savvy trial lawyers are increasingly doing: using PowerPoint slides. Here at Persuasion Strategies, we used
Use PowerPoint (For Both Credibility and Comprehension) Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: We know communication is visual and not just verbal. But when litigators think of that, they tend to think of demonstrative exhibits and technology. But what about themselves? As a speaker, you’re making a visual impression as well. Most know the basics: stand up straight, look the jury or judge in
Consider How You Come Across With the Volume Off Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The experience of language and meaning isn’t something bottled up in one drawer of the brain’s filing system. Instead, it is something that dances across your entire brain, using the full canvas of your cerebral cortex. And that sentence is a good example. It is visual and it is active.
Use Visual Language Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It happens sometimes in an argument: You know the claim you’re hearing is false, but you also know that it sounds like it could be true, and it’ll be a lot harder to refute the argument than it was to make it in the first place. Measured in time and
Counter the Cheap Shot Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: A recent blog post written by a juror in the trial of Jim Fayed, a gold trader convicted of arranging the brutal murder of his estranged wife in a Los Angeles parking garage, included some rather colorful descriptions of the prosecutor’s use of demonstrative graphics: …And then there were the
Follow the Ten Commandments of Graphics Use in Trial Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: If you aren’t on Facebook, you may not have seen this before (and if you are, then you might see it, with different words, just about every day). The image and text above is called a “meme,” the “Condescending Wonka Meme” in this case. It’s a joke, of course, but
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Over the past week, the phrase “beyond words” has been a common way of describing the nation’s reaction to the murder of 20 young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. In a way, it is literally beyond words, because what dominates our thoughts is the
Use Mental Images to Sway Moral Judgment Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: If you recognize the word “truthiness” then chances are, you are a fan of Comedy Central’s mock news commentator Steven Colbert. If not, the neologism is something Colbert coined in his first show in 2005, and “truthiness is what you want the facts to be, as opposed to what
Keep an Eye on Your “Truthiness” Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Stories require more than sequence. They require a sense of place, a tone, and a texture. Even when told without prepared images or video, a good story requires language that helps the mind “see” and not just comprehend the action. There is one study that perfectly captures this point (Tversky
Talk to the Eyes: If It Can’t Be Visualized, It’s Not a Story Read More »