Over a week seems to have gone by without me updating or posting anything. Oops. Nothing terribly exciting has been happening. I've been pretty busy with school. I had a bunch of research coming down the pipeline, a neuroscience exam, and 4 presentations to prepare for. Progress on some of those things remains ongoing...

Here's an interesting study. Researchers had students rate their teachers' performances after having them in class for a semester. Then researchers took three 2-second video clips of those same teachers teaching. They showed the clips to another group of students and had those students rate how good they thought the teachers were. The 2-second ratings and the semester ratings were virtually identical.

The researchers hypothesized that people are very good at determining someone's ability based on limited information. I wonder, though, whether it's actually the other way around. Maybe it's that the students (the ones who rated the teachers after a semester) actually based their decisions on limited information related to their initial impressions.

In either case, here are some lessons from the study. These factors had, by far, the most influence on the ratings. When speaking to a group...

1) Look toward your audience (never look down or away)
2) Keep your hands quiet (never fidget with an object)
3) Smile (never frown)