So good to have my son home after three weeks in London and Prague! I'm really grateful he got to have that experience. He spent time digging through the British archives and just wandering around Prague, and he's come back with some amazing stories and memories that'll stick with him forever. Now he's running around trying to squeeze in appointments and stock up on everything before Miami gets him back for spring semester next week. (Unfortunately, he might head down a day early—there's a winter storm heading our way that's supposed to dump a foot of snow on us!)

Our brains are built to hold onto memories like these—but they're especially tuned to remember one thing above all else: faces. This week's research explores why that matters for how you design learning.

Supported by iSpring

Launching customer training? Don’t wing it. Most programs fail for simple reasons: skipped steps, fuzzy goals, rushed launches. This checklist shows you exactly what to plan, build, and double-check so your projects are a success.

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The attention trick marketers use (and L&D ignores)

Your electrical outlet looks shocked. Your car's headlights look angry. You're seeing faces where none exist.

That's pareidolia—and it's running your learners' attention whether you design for it or not.

Why This Matters for Learning Design

Your brain treats random face-like patterns exactly like real human faces. A dedicated face-processing region fires up in 165 milliseconds. That's faster than conscious thought.

Faces grab attention automatically.

But here's what makes this useful: faces don't just capture attention. They direct it.

People automatically follow where a face is looking. This happens in 100-300 milliseconds. Even when they know it's just a photograph. Even when you tell them the gaze direction means nothing.

Look at these eye-tracking heatmaps:

Baby looks at you → Viewers stare at the baby, miss everything else

Baby looks at headline → Viewers follow the gaze to your message

Same ad. Same baby. Different gaze direction. Completely different attention pattern.

Marketers have exploited this for decades. They know faces in ads boost attention and recall—but only when the gaze points at content, not at the viewer.

What Most L&D Does

We use clean, abstract designs. Icons instead of faces. Generic stock photos without people. It seems logical.

Until you realize: learners aren't neutral information processors. They're pattern-seeking machines scanning for signals that tell them what matters.

No faces? They'll still look for meaning. They'll just find it in the wrong places.

Test It Yourself

Pick a slide where learners always miss your key point. Add a face looking directly at that point—not at the camera, at the content. The diagram. The headline. The number that matters.

Upload both versions to Attention Insight (free trial). You'll see exactly where attention lands with the face versus your original version. You'll be surprised how such a simple change redirects focus so powerfully.

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Also supported by Neovation

Join us on Wednesday, January 28, for Beyond ChatGPT: Your Practical AI Toolkit for L&D! We'll show you imaginative uses for powerful AI tools (that are often FREE) that will allow you to do more with less!

→ Register for Beyond ChatGPT​

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Want to go deeper? Here are three great places to start.

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Worth your attention
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Where Faces Look, Attention Follows

This review explains what’s really going on. Why do faces looking at content grab more attention than faces looking at us? Start here.

​Read the research on how attention really works →​

Seeing Jesus in Toast: How the Brain Finds Faces Everywhere

Brain scans reveal a strange truth: your brain doesn’t care much whether a face is real or fake. Even random patterns can set off the same response.

​See why our brains see meaning where none exists →​

The Influence of Eye Gaze on Attention and Memory

Want something you can actually use? This eye-tracking study shows how gaze direction draws attention to content and boosts recall.

​Read how gaze direction boosts attention and memory →​

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We explore this in Chapter 6 of Think Like a Marketer, Train Like an L&D Pro — how faces and gaze direction guide learner attention before they're consciously aware it's happening.

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Did this resonate? Or miss entirely? Either way, hit reply—I’d love to hear your take.

🎵 Today I'm listening to 70s & 80s Acoustic​

📍Where I'll be next

• ​Learning Network Book Club, Jan 26 (Online)
• ​LearnTec, May 5-7 (Karlsruhe, Germany)
• ​ATD International Conference, May 17-20 (Los Angeles, CA)

If today’s issue was useful, my book Think Like a Marketer, Train Like an L&D Pro goes deeper on designing learning that earns attention and drives action. And if you’ve read it, a short review helps more than you might think.