????回想一下你上次聆聽某人發表演講或任何正式陳述的情形。它也許太長了，以至于你被各種數據搞得頭昏腦脹，甚或干脆不理會演講者。如果演講者使用了PPT文檔，那么每張幻燈片很可能塞入了至少40個單詞或數字，但你現在或許只記得一丁點內容。

????相當平淡，是吧？《像TED那樣演講：全球頂級人才九大演講秘訣》(Talk Like TED: 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of The World's Best Minds)一書以流暢的文筆審視了為什么TED演講如此生動，如此引人入勝。出版方有意安排在今年3月份發行此書，以慶賀如今已成為經典的TED大會成立30周年。這部著作借鑒當代腦科學解釋了什么樣的演講能夠說服聽眾、鼓舞聽眾，什么樣的演講無法產生這種效果。

????作者卡邁恩?加洛還研究了500多場最受歡迎的TED演講（到目前為止，TED大會已組織了大約1,500場演講），還采訪了許多演講嘉賓。

????他挖出了不少令人吃驚的演講策略。例如，每場TED演講都被限制在18分鐘以內。聽起來太過短暫，似乎無法傳達足夠多訊息。然而，TED大會策辦人克里斯?安德森決議推行這項時間限制規則，因為“這個時間長度足夠莊重，同時又足夠短，能夠吸引人們的注意力。通過迫使那些習慣于滔滔不絕講上45分鐘的嘉賓把演講時間壓縮至18分鐘，你就可以讓他們認真思考他們真正想說的話，”他對加洛說。此外，安德森說，如果你希望你的訊息像病毒般擴散，這也是一個完美的時間長度。

????最近的神經科學研究說明了為什么這項時間限制產生如此好的效果：聆聽陳述的人們往往會存儲相關數據，以備未來檢索之用，而太多的信息會導致“認知超負荷”，進而推升聽眾的焦慮度。它意味著，如果你說個沒完沒了，聽眾就會開始抗拒你。更糟糕的是，他們不會記得你努力希望傳遞的信息點，甚至可能一個都記不住。

????“愛因斯坦曾經說過，‘要是你不能言簡意賅地解釋某種理論，那就說明你自己都還沒有理解透徹，’”加羅寫道。他還舉例說，物理學家或許會大加贊賞天文學家大衛?克里斯蒂安在2011年TED大會上發表的演講。克里斯蒂安在這個演講中完整地講述了宇宙史及地球在宇宙的地位，整場演講用時只有17分40秒。

????如何把一個復雜的陳述壓縮至18分鐘左右？加洛就這個問題提供了一些小建議，其中包括他所稱的“三的法則”。具體說就是，把大量觀點高度濃縮為三大要點。TED大會上的許多演講高手就是這樣做的。他還指出，即使一篇演講無法提煉到這樣的程度，單是這番努力也一定能改善演講的效果：“僅僅通過這番提煉，你就可以大大增強陳述的創造性和影響力。”

????另一個建議與PPT文檔有關。“TED大會象征著我們所知的PPT文檔正走向終結，”加洛寫道。他隨后又馬上補充說，作為工具的PowerPoint本身并沒有什么錯，但大多數演講者為他們的幻燈片塞進了太多的單詞（平均40個）和數字，讓這種工具不經意間帶來了消極影響。

????最吸引人的TED演講為我們提供了一個補救策略：如果你必須使用幻燈片，務必記得要大量運用圖像資源。這種做法同樣有科學依據，它就是研究人員所稱的“圖優效應”(Picture Superiority Effect)：聽到或讀到一組事實三天后，大多數人會記得大約10%的信息。而添加一張照片或圖片后，記憶率將躍升至65%。

????華盛頓大學醫學院(University of Washington School of Medicine)分子生物學家約翰?梅迪納主持的研究發現，幾天后，人們能夠回想起超過2,500張圖片，準確率至少達到90%；一年后的準確率依然保持在63%左右。

????梅迪納的研究表明，這個結果“完勝”印刷品和演講的記憶效果（由同一組受試者測試）。任何一位希望自己的思想被聽眾銘記在心的演講者或許都應該記住這一點。（財富中文網）

????譯者：葉寒

????

????Think about the last time you heard someone give a speech, or any formal presentation. Maybe it was so long that you were either overwhelmed with data, or you just tuned the speaker out. If PowerPoint was involved, each slide was probably loaded with at least 40 words or figures, and odds are that you don't remember more than a tiny bit of what they were supposed to show.

????Pretty uninspiring, huh? Talk Like TED: 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of The World's Best Mindsexamines why in prose that's as lively and appealing as, well, a TED talk. Timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary in March of those now-legendary TED conferences, the book draws on current brain science to explain what wins over, and fires up, an audience -- and what doesn't. Author Carmine Gallo also studied more than 500 of the most popular TED speeches (there have been about 1,500 so far) and interviewed scores of the people who gave them.

????Much of what he found out is surprising. Consider, for instance, the fact that each TED talk is limited to 18 minutes. That might sound too short to convey much. Yet TED curator Chris Anderson imposed the time limit, he told Gallo, because it's "long enough to be serious and short enough to hold people's attention ... By forcing speakers who are used to going on for 45 minutes to bring it down to 18, you get them to think about what they really want to say." It's also the perfect length if you want your message to go viral, Anderson says.

????Recent neuroscience shows why the time limit works so well: People listening to a presentation are storing data for retrieval in the future, and too much information leads to "cognitive overload," which gives rise to elevated levels of anxiety -- meaning that, if you go on and on, your audience will start to resist you. Even worse, they won't recall a single point you were trying to make.

????"Albert Einstein once said, 'If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough,'" Gallo writes, adding that the physicist would have applauded astronomer David Christian who, at TED in 2011, narrated the complete history of the universe -- and Earth's place in it -- in 17 minutes and 40 seconds.

????Gallo offers some tips on how to boil a complex presentation down to 18 minutes or so, including what he calls the "rule of three," or condensing a plethora of ideas into three main points, as many top TED talkers do. He also notes that, even if a speech just can't be squeezed down that far, the effort alone is bound to improve it: "Your presentation will be far more creative and impactful simply by going through the exercise."

????Then there's PowerPoint. "TED represents the end of PowerPoint as we know it," writes Gallo. He hastens to add that there's nothing wrong with PowerPoint as a tool, but that most speakers unwittingly make it work against them by cluttering up their slides with way too many words (40, on average) and numbers.

????The remedy for that, based on the most riveting TED talks: If you must use slides, fill them with a lot more images. Once again, research backs this up, with something academics call the Picture Superiority Effect: Three days after hearing or reading a set of facts, most people will remember about 10% of the information. Add a photo or a drawing, and recall jumps to 65%.

????One study, by molecular biologist John Medina at the University of Washington School of Medicine, found that not only could people recall more than 2,500 pictures with at least 90% accuracy several days later, but accuracy a whole year afterward was still at about 63%.

????That result "demolishes" print and speech, both of which were tested on the same group of subjects, Medina's study indicated, which is something worth bearing in mind for anybody hoping that his or her ideas will be remembered.