Public speaking: what does the audience remember afterwards?
In Zurich's financial services, insurance and technology businesses, and the European headquarters of international groups, presentations often need to inform decisions made after the session. The management question is specific: does asking an audience to retrieve the message from memory improve retention more than showing a final summary?
What the literature establishes
Henry L. Roediger III and Jeffrey D. Karpicke (2006, Psychological Science) compared repeated study of texts with conditions that included recall from memory. On delayed assessments, participants who had practised recall retained more than those who had only restudied the texts, whereas an assessment shortly after learning could favour restudying. Retrieving information is therefore not simply a way to check learning: under these conditions, it is also a way to strengthen it.
Reconstructing rather than reviewing
Jeffrey D. Karpicke and Janell R. Blunt (2011, Science) compared retrieval practice with elaborative studying based on constructing concept maps. In their experiments using science texts, retrieval practice produced better results on a delayed assessment, including questions testing comprehension and inference. These findings suggest that reconstructing content without looking at it can offer something beyond another exposure, even an active one.
The tempting conclusion
It would be tempting to conclude that adding a quiz to any presentation will increase its impact. Yet these studies concern learning content, not agreement with a recommendation or the quality of collective decisions. An audience may remember a proposal better without becoming better at evaluating its evidence: retention is a different objective from persuasion. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence cannot promise
The experiments cited involve controlled learning situations, mainly with students, rather than workplace presentations in Zurich. They establish neither the best format for a closing question nor its effectiveness with a multilingual audience subject to hierarchical constraints. Conversely, asking 'is that clear?' captures a reported impression, not the ability to retrieve the message later.
A practical check in Zurich
Within SHR's 'Public Speaking & impact' programme, an exercise could compare two ways of closing the same presentation with comparable groups in a Zurich company: rereading a summary or individually recalling, without materials, the recommendation, its rationale and one condition under which it holds. Randomly assigning the formats where possible and allowing equal time would limit some sources of bias. Two days later, ask everyone to recall these three elements without materials, then have the responses assessed blind using a rubric established before the exercise. The measure would be the proportion of elements correctly recalled in each group: an indicator of retention, not proof of better decisions. To go further: explore the Public Speaking & Impact training in Zurich, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
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