What’s up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Carmen Simon, Chief Science Officer at Corporate Visions and Brain Science Instructor at Stanford CS. Summary: Carmen takes us on an adventure exploring the wonders of brain science and how to sustain attention through contrast. We cover embodied cognition, deviating from expected patterns and avoiding the sea of sameness in AI content. We also take a detour into the speculative future of neuroscience and making data impactful through context. About Carmen Carmen has spent her career in multimedia design, writing books, creating and selling companies, and more recently conducting brain science research. She wrote ‘Impossible to Ignore’ – A groundbreaking approach to creating memorable messages that are easy to process, hard to forgetShe started (and still is) at Stanford Continuing Studies teaching several brain science coursesAnd today she’s Chief Science Officer at Corporate Visions where she runs neuroscience research to help businesses increase their persuasive powerShe also recently published another book called Made You Look – a full-color image packed guide on developing persuasive contentEmbodied Cognition in Marketing Carmen highlights the rising trend of embodied cognition in neuroscience. This concept suggests that our brain’s attention, memory formation, and decision-making are influenced by the interaction between the brain, body, and environment. It's not just mental processes but physical engagement that shapes our cognitive functions. She offers practical advice for marketers: involve your audience physically. For example, during a sales presentation or team meeting, encourage note-taking. This simple act engages multiple parts of the body, enhancing memory and focus. In Carmen’s studies, participants who took notes during sessions retained information better than those who just listened. The key is to move beyond passive engagement. Traditional methods often required participants to stay still, but advancements in neuroscience now allow for physical involvement without compromising data accuracy. So, telling your audience to write things down can make a significant difference in how well they remember and engage with your content. This becomes more challenging in remote settings like Zoom. The temptation to type notes digitally is strong, leading to potential distractions. Carmen’s research shows that while digital note-takers wrote more, those who handwrote their notes retained and synthesized information better. Handwriting forces individuals to summarize and critically engage with the content, enhancing the quality of their notes and memory retention. Carmen’s insights suggest that integrating physical activities into your marketing strategies can create a more immersive and memorable experience for your audience. This approach not only boosts engagement but also helps in building stronger connections and better information retention. Key takeaway: Encourage physical involvement in your marketing efforts. Simple acts like note-taking can enhance engagement and retention, leveraging the principles of embodied cognition for more effective and memorable interactions. Enhancing Virtual Engagement with Body Cues Carmen discusses an intriguing neuroscience study comparing brain activity when showing products through slides versus using a whiteboard. She emphasizes that using a whiteboard engages people more effectively. The physical act of drawing grabs attention and creates a dynamic visual experience. When the audience is encouraged to draw along, this engagement deepens even further. Encouraging participants to draw along creates a shared physical activity, reinforcing memory retention. This technique leverages embodied cognition, where physical movement aids cognitive processes. Carmen’s study showed superior recall effects for those who engaged in drawing versus those who only watched slides. After 48 hours, parti