Blog Post 5 - Let's Read

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TED Talk Reflection Video

https://youtu.be/a_paXcfMAV8

For more information on Lisa Bu's speech, visit http://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_bu_how_books_can_open_your_mind#t-348325

TED Talk Analysis

TED Talk: The Fight Against Sex Slavery

I watched a TED Talk entitled “The Fight Against Sex Slavery”, which is one of nine talks included in a playlist called “The Pursuit of Justice”. The talk was given by a forty year old woman from India named Sunitha Krishnan. She presented this talk in November of 2009 in Mysore, India to a TEDIndia audience. I was drawn to a video on this topic because I previously attended a conference that focused on stopping sex trafficking and giving help to its victims.

 Sunitha Krishnan starts out by telling the stories of three very young girls, their ages ranging from three to five years old, who had each been sold into sex trafficking and later rescued. When they were found, they were all HIV positive, and by the time that this talk was given, all three of them had passed away due to this. As a visual aid, Krishnan includes a photo of each of the children. This appeals to the emotion of the audience because it allows them to actually put a name and face with the tragic stories, which makes them more real.

three young girls that were sold into sex trafficking

Later, Krishnan tells her own story. When she was just fourteen years old, she was attacked and raped by eight men. For years after she was raped, she was isolated and treated differently because she was a victim. This experience filled her with anger and gave her a passion for helping other survivors of sex trafficking. As of 2009, she had rescued over 3,200 women and children from sex trafficking. Her personal contact with sex trafficking and her involvement in saving others like her shows the audience that she is a very credible source and has vast knowledge of the topic she is speaking about.

Not only does Sunitha Krishnan work to rescue victims of sex trafficking, but she aids them in assimilating back into normal society as well. The rescues women are trained to be welders, carpenters, security guards, and many others. Many of them work in major construction companies. Visual aids are used again to show the women working in these jobs. This part of the process is very important to Krishnan because it was the isolation after she was attacked that affected her the most. She does not want these girls to have the same experience, but, rather, to flourish in their new skills and be treated normally by the rest of society.

rescued women working for a construction company

           Throughout her entire presentation, Sunitha Krishnan maintains eye contact with the audience and remains confident in her words and gestures. Her tone of voice is soothing, yet powerful. She uses volume, tone, and timing to create different moments in the speech or to emphasize certain parts of it. Also, she employs natural, but stern hand gestures. She points, extends her arms, and holds out her hands. Over all, through the utilization of all of these aspects of her speech, Sunitha Krishnan is able to convey her message very passionately and in a way that compels the audience to listen, to think, and to act.

Sunitha Krishnan speaking passionately

TED Talk Analysis: The Linguistic Genius of Babies

The Linguistic Genius of Babies

Patricia Kuhl

              Patricia Kuhl researches and studies language and brain development. She is the co-director of the Institute for Brain and Learning Sciences at the University of Washington. This TED Talk was filmed in October 2010 (location unknown). It discusses how important and impactful development of language is in very young children. Kuhl describes what the babies are as “taking statistics” on how often they hear particular sounds and how they connect. There is a lot of emphasis on the fact that there are critical times in a child’s life for language development and the early years can drastically influence the child throughout life. As a society as a whole we have always focused on bringing children up to academic standards once they enter the school system.

              It takes a human being to influence the development and recognition of a new language. When infants are exposed to a new language through a television with audio they do not develop any more skills than infants who are solely exposed to English. However, infants exposed to a novel language in the presence of another human speaking it developed recognition of the language at the same level as babies who had parents who were native speakers of that language.

After viewing this presentation and researching the topic further I have realized that in order to improve overall development and literacy we must place more emphasis on developing children academically way before they step foot in a preschool.

Figure 1
A graph depicting the results of one of Kuhl's studies

Kuhl did a nice job of focusing on maintaining interest of her audience, keeping eye contact, speaking at the proper pace, organizing her presentation, appropriately supporting her claims with evidence, and using necessary visual aids. In order to support her presentation a visual presentation was running in the background as she presented. This aided the audience in following along because it provided graphs (as seen in Figure 1) to display the research she was discussing in her speech. Videos of the study were also integrated into the presentation in order to effectively demonstrate to the audience what had occurred in the laboratory.

              In order to improve upon the speech Kuhl could have kept the microphone away phone her mouth. The saliva sounds were very gross and distracting towards the end. This caused her voice to be less clear and difficult to focus on. She did use appropriate gestures throughout the speech but could have elaborated at times. Additionally, she could have compiled her data into one graph or visual because the point she was trying to make would have come across more strongly, in my opinion.

This is the TED Talk Kuhl gave in October 2010

Domestic Violence - Katy

My service learning program is working with the Lexington Public Library, and the social issue that I chose to investigate for this was the literacy gap in Lexington and elsewhere in the world. Though I continue to find this topic very important, I’ve decided to change topics for my final speech, and in doing so looked for a Ted Talk on this new subject. For the past two years I have become increasingly concerned and interested with domestic violence. After an event within my family came to light, I took it upon myself to learn everything there was to know about domestic violence. So, today I chose to analyze the Ted Talk by Leslie Morgan Steiner titled: Why Domestic Violence Victims Don’t Leave. She gave this speech in 2013 at TEDxRainier.

Leslie's book on her experiences about Domestic Violence.

The overall speech was piercing, as Professor Martin would say. Her words struck you some place inside where you no longer heard the words but felt them. The audience most likely held many misconceptions about the topic beforehand, as Leslie addressed. So many of the things that the audience might have believed that they knew about the topic, they didn’t actually. Leslie recognized each of these misconceptions and talked about the truth. She also got the audience involved in her speech towards the end. She said that her speech wasn’t about her, it was about all of them. It was about the audience because this cruel act of violence can happen to any of them, or their mothers, sisters, friends, etc. She asked for a call of action by spreading their newfound understanding of the topic and not keep silent.

Mrs. Steiner’s eye contact was critical during her piece. By looking at members of the audience and occasionally at the camera, she showed confidence. She was clearly courageous and not scared to talk about her past. As for visual aids, she had an actual (unloaded) gun with her, that she used to describe the way that her ex-husband would hold one to her head, threatening to kill her. Towards the end, she also included a picture of her new family. Those were the only visual aids, and perhaps could’ve used some more, but they were both very effective. As for evidence, she included many statistics (like one in three women will experience some form of domestic violence or stalking in their lifetime) and also her own personal, moving anecdote. Throughout the entire speech she had natural gestures, and not canned or practiced ones. It truly seemed like she was just telling her story to a group of people unrehearsed.

Leslie Morgan Steiner holding gun as a visual aid in her Ted Talk.

The only criticism I have on the speech would be to not look down to the ground so much when she happens to (maybe) forget her next line. Other than that, I felt that the speech was powerful, moving, and hopefully gave everyone in the audience reason enough to fight against domestic violence. I admire Leslie Morgan Steiner in her activism against domestic violence, and the strength that it must take to get up on stage and tell the grim details of her past.

Here is a link to the Ted Talk if you want to view it yourself. I highly recommend it. 

How Reliable is your Memory?

Elizabeth Loftus gave this TED talk at TEDGlobal 2013 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her purpose is to inform her audience about how memories can be inaccurate. Her name caught my eye immediately because I had heard it in AP Psychology last year, and I knew that she studied false memories. With Loftus being a well-known psychologist, the audience can expect a quality presentation with accurate information. Any audience member with experience with psychology or law enforcement should know what false memories are and how they impact court cases, etc. Loftus had excellent eye contact around the room and used many gestures, but not in a way that was over the top. 

An example of Loftus gesturing to the audience.

I like the way that she organized her speech. Her transitions were smooth, with an obvious introduction, body, and conclusion. She begins with a story of a man who was wrongfully convicted based on false memories. He was misidentified as the perpetrator of the crime. Then, she defines what false memories are, for the audience members who do not already know. They are situations when people remember things that did not happen or things that are different than the way that they really were. Loftus then continues talking about the impact false memories have in court cases. She used the following graphic to illustrate her point. 

Her graphic used as evidence

She goes on to say that three-quarters of the 300 people wrongfully convicted were convicted on the basis of false memories. Then, she establishes her credibility, having studied false memories for decades.  She continues to talk about her own experiments involving constructive memory.  Loftus contradicts the previous belief that memory is like a recorder, but instead is like a Wikipedia page, able to be "edited" by the person and others. 

Loftus displaying a photo used in her experiments.

For example, the above photo displayed depicts a car crash, and participants were told to guess the speed at which the car was traveling. However, responses varied based on the wording of the question. How fast was the car traveling when the car hit the other car? How fast was the car traveling when the car smashed the other car? To participants, the word 'smashed' implied a higher speed than 'hit'. To participants, the word 'smashed' implied a higher speed than 'hit'. Later, she discusses how the effect is magnified when the person is under stress.

Under stress, people can make misidentifications like this one, due to false memories.

Other experiments have placed false memories into the minds of participants, such as getting lost in a shopping mall, attacked by a wild animal, or nearly drowning as a child. She discusses the ethical concerns associated with this information. Should we use this mind technology? Or should we ever ban its use? 

Loftus concludes with further discussion of the case that she brought up at the beginning. Then, she brings up her most important, take home message. Overall, I liked the speech and thought it was organized in a way that made sense. However, she seemed to be slightly out of breath at some points during her speech. Another thing she could improve is her body language. She did not walk around, but shifted her weight so much that it was distracting, especially when the camera was focused on only her face and upper body. This caused whoever was filming to frequently cut to a different camera angle. 

She was originally in the center of the frame, but quickly shifted towards the right side.

The final thought of the TED talk.

Link to full video