PowerPoint Animation

A seminar attendee recently asked me "why" (although the brain cannot really answer that question) I did not use animation in my PowerPoint presentations as it was "so much more entertaining." I was able to report conclusions from studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington on the impact of custom animation in PowerPoint lectures: although students appear to like the animation, it is actually entertaining distraction for the brain. Students seeing the non-animated lecture performed much better in subsequent tests of content than those who watched the animated lecture. According to the researchers, animated slides meant to present information incrementally actually require greater concentration, which makes it harder to remember content as well as reducing overall exposure time to the "complete" slide. So, no animated PowerPoint slides for my seminars. (Smile.)

http://www.physorg.com/news163936965.html