The other day, I did a simple experiment in a room full of lawyers from the Los Angeles Bar Association. Roughly 200 people. I showed a few slides in a row. Same layout. Same structure. Same visual rhythm. Same title. Then I showed a fourth slide. Same design. Except for one thing: There was a typo on it. A pretty obvious one. Then I asked the room: “How many of you noticed the typo?” About five hands went up. Five… out of two hundred. The uncomfortable truth It wasn’t that the audience wasn’t smart. It wasn’t that they weren’t paying attention. It’s that their brains had already decided what my slides were going to say—and stopped really looking or reading. That’s not a presentation problem. That’s a human cognition problem.
You might be waking up today to a world that looks like it’s been quietly buried in snow. Sidewalks vanish. Cars turn into white shapes. The usual landmarks of daily life—curbs, steps, driveways—are suddenly indistinct.
Cognitive biases are a natural part of being human, and jurors are not exempt from these biases when serving in a court of law. The impact of these biases on how jurors receive and interpret expert testimony cannot be underestimated, as it can ultimately shape the outcome of a trial.
Confirmation bias is a pervasive cognitive bias that affects individuals in all areas of life, including the court system. It is crucial to understand the nature and effects of confirmation bias in order to mitigate its impact on jury trials. By recognizing and addressing confirmation bias, we can work towards winning cases more predictively.
I notice something about audiences in the PowerPoint presentation era. They seem to get easily disengaged part of the way into a presentation. This tendency is especially problematic in a courtroom setting since judge and juror visual attention is critical for courtroom persuasion.
A fascinating new study in the field of social psychology indicates that the type font in which an argument is presented has an effect on how convincing it is. For trial graphics consultants and litigators alike, this is potentially very big news.
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