Made You Look

Outline

Made You Look (2024) explores how attention works and why some messages immediately attract interest while others are quickly overlooked. Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, Carmen Simon examines surprise, emotion, relevance, visual design, rewards, and memory as influences on what people notice. The book provides practical guidance for creating presentations, advertisements, and professional messages that capture attention responsibly and make important ideas easier to understand and remember.

• Some messages attract interest immediately while others are overlooked, and understanding how attention works explains the difference.
• Carmen Simon draws on cognitive neuroscience to show how people decide what to notice.
• Surprise, emotion, relevance, visual design, rewards and memory all shape what captures a person's attention.
• The book offers practical guidance for building presentations, advertisements and professional messages that people notice.
• Attention should be earned responsibly, so that important ideas become easier to understand and remember.

Carmen Simon is a cognitive neuroscientist, author, consultant, and speaker specialising in attention, memory, decision making, and persuasive communication. She works with organisations to apply findings from brain science to presentations, marketing, leadership, and professional education. Her writing helps communicators understand not only how to attract attention, but also how to make useful information memorable and meaningful.