The Amygdala and Audience Engagement

The amygdala is also key to other elements of audience engagement. For example, it plays an important role in salience, what grabs and keeps our attention. In other words, attention is an emotion-driven phenomenon. If we want to get and hold an audience’s attention, we need to trigger the amygdala to our advantage. Only when we have an audience’s attention can we then move them to rational argument.

I have become somewhat notorious in the programs I teach in at NYU for the way I start each class. I teach all-day sessions on Saturdays, and as the 9 AM start time approaches, most students are still milling about, getting settled, and chatting with each other. At precisely 9 AM I touch a button on my remote mouse and play a sudden blast of very loud rock music. Most of the time it’s the chorus of “Let’s Get It Started” by the Black Eyed Peas, but to keep the element of surprise I sometimes vary the selection. After a 10-second burst of very loud music, I have every student’s undivided attention. I then lock in the connection: I smile, welcome them, thank them for investing a full Saturday in developing their careers. Only then do I begin the class. I have hijacked their amygdalas. Note also that in the anecdote with which I opened this chapter I had the audience’s complete attention once I had shocked them with my lemon-chewing demonstration. There was complete silence and full attention by the time I began to explain mirror neurons. We need audiences to feel first, and then to think.