Scan the Entire Room During a Presentation
Imagine yourself pitching an idea to a group of people. As you speak, you quickly scan the audience, your attention jumping from face to face. What are they thinking? Research shows that when looking at a group, you’re more likely to focus on faces expressing strong emotions — whether positive or negative — and pay less attention to the more mild expressions in the crowd. This is a mistake: If you only zero in on the more expressive faces in your audience, you’re likely to project those emotions onto the rest of the crowd, overestimating the reaction of the entire audience. Since this attention bias is stronger for faces showing negative sentiments, you might assume that your presentation is going over worse than it is. To counter this tendency, intentionally survey every face in the room — or on the Zoom. This will leave you with a more accurate, measured estimation of the atmosphere and how your audience truly feels about what you’re saying.
“Don’t Focus on the Most Expressive Face in the Audience,” by Amit Goldenberg and Erika Weisz