How 'evil' is PowerPoint really?

How‘evil‘ is PowerPoint really?
Eye-Tracking as a method in multi-modal scientificcommunicationresearchStavanger | 05/06/2009
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Hans-Jürgen Bucher | Philipp Niemann

Areas of Interest
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Areas of Interest
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Surrounding Area
Multimodality
Non-Linearity
Presentation
Speaker
Audience / Moderator

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Aspectsofunderstandingmultimodal communication
“Writing moves the sound world to a world of visual space, but print locks words into a position in this space. […] Because print controlled not only what words were put down to form a text but also the exact situation of the words on a page and their spatial relationship to one another, the space itself on a printed sheet took on high significance.” (Ong 2002/1988: 119, 122, 126)
Sequentialorder:temporal logic
Presentation: spatio-temporal logic
Compositionalorder:spatiallogic

Aspects of design in presentations
The spatial order / arrangement of presenter(s), screen(s)
The presenter’s actions of verbal, physical and technical reference to elements of the slide
The design of the PP-slides (bullet points, typography, layout, visualisations etc.)
The animations of the slides and the slide transitions
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Research problems
Problem of Compositionality: How is the meaning of a multimodal document composed out of the single elements?How are the different semiotic systems coordinated in the process of meaning making?(holistic versus additive)
Problem of Reception:Are the processes of selection and meaning making controlled by attributes of the document or the recipient? How do visual salience and cues or aspects of speechinfluence the process of reception? (inductive versus deductive)
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Research questions
How is attention allocated during multi-modal scientific presentations?
How can coherence emerge in multi-modal scientific communication?
Are therespecificpatternsofreception?
How are communication problems solved that appear during the reception of multi-modal presentations?
Do newmodesofscientificpresentationcontributetooptimizingknowledgetransfer?
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Receptionstudy design

Scenario I

Live presentations
Scenario II + III
Presentations in a laboratorysetting
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Research methods

Eye-tracking
Think aloud
Questionnaire

Scenario I: Live presentations
Scientific presentations given at symposia, conferences of scientific associations, etc.
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36 presentations
Humanities
Sciences
Economics

Scenario I: Setting
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Scenario I: Analysis
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Scenario I: Results (meso level)
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Engineering science:

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Law:

Scenario I: Analysis
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Scenario I: Results (microlevel)
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Engineering science:
Speaker
Graphics

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Experimental economics:
Speaker
Graphics
Text
Other

Scenario II + III: Laboratory setting
Scenario II
Scenario III
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:
:

Conclusions (Hypotheses)
The meaning of a presentation is compositional.
Following a presentation means to organize attention simultaneously on a temporal and a spatial level.
The perception of the slides is determined by their rhetorical style (and not only by visual salience).
All elements of the presentation are contextualizing each other.
Multimodal meaning is multiplicative and not additive.
Coherence is organized by the elements of design: the actions of reference (implicit and explicit), and visual cues.
Spatial contiguity is replaced by semantic contiguity.
Reducing the cognitive overload of a presentation depends on the coherence management (signaling principle).
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Interactive Science
Interdisciplinaryresearchassociation:
ComputationalLinguistics (Gießen)
Political Science (Gießen)
Media Science (Trier)
Dramatics (Hamburg)
Information Science (Konstanz)
Technology Assessment (Wien)
Project duration: 2008-2011
Funding: Volkswagen Foundation
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