The Definitive Book of Body Language

The Definitive Book of Body Language

this for decades - make them laugh from the left and cry from

the right.

The Attention Zone

Using parameters employed by researchers Robert Sommer and

Adams and Biddle, we conducted a study of audiences to esti-

mate how much participation was given by delegates based on

where they were sitting in a seminar room and how much they

could recall of what the presenter was saying. Our results were

remarkably similar to the original Robert Sommer study, even

though our participants were adults and Sommer's were stu-

dents. We also found few cultural differences between

Australians, Singaporeans, South Africans, Germans, Brits,

French or Finns. High-status individuals sit in the front row in

most places — most notably in Japan - and they participate the

least, so we recorded audience data only where delegates were

generally of equal status. The result was what we call the

'Funnel Effect^1.

Retention of information and participation by attendees based

on their choice of seat (Pease, 1986)

As you can see, when participants are sitting in classroom
style, there is a 'learning zone' shaped like a funnel, which
extends directly down the centre of an audience and across the
front row. Those sitting in the 'funnel' gave the most amount
of participation, interacted most with the presenter and had