{"id":1429,"date":"2019-07-11T18:38:33","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T16:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spectacularspeaking.com\/?p=1429"},"modified":"2019-12-10T17:23:20","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T16:23:20","slug":"the-curse-of-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spectacularspeaking.com\/2019\/07\/11\/the-curse-of-knowledge\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Zinn on the Curse of Knowledge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
One of the most common traps speakers fall into is called the curse of knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They assume that the audience knows the same things they know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It happens to all of us. We tend to forget the time and energy we put into acquiring the knowledge we have, we forget there was a time when we didn\u2019t have that knowledge. We can no longer even imagine that people don\u2019t have that knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One way to explain the curse of knowledge is with the tapping experiment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Take a song that other people will know. Tap the rhythm on the table while you hear the melody in your head. Let the other people guess what it was. Most of the time, they won\u2019t guess it. (Famous exceptions: Happy birthday and We will rock you)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the curse of knowledge: the melody is so clear in your head that it\u2019s hard to imagine they won\u2019t get it from the mere taps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now tell them the title of the song. If they know the song, and you tap it again, they will now hear the melody in their head as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this is the way out: tell them. Explain. Give examples. Lead them to the melody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n