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  Deirdre Cobbin Scientist/Communicator, University of Technology Sydney

On Tuesday 23rd October 2018, I join family and friends of Scientist and Communicator Deirdre Cobbin, at her funeral in North Sydney, to celebrate her great mind, passion and generosity. I know she would be happy for me to share a thought that arose from our last Email conversation. It's about how to test a theory we discussed, that more people would prefer stories where real emotions are involved.

thought for the day or week or...

Deirdre's funeral is the first I have experienced where everyone clapped after speeches, and where the body was accompanied by a duck. (One of Deirdre's beloved ducks had died just days before):

Deirdre Cobbin in her radio studio in conversation with William Gladstone(2015), about A Walk Through Living Data, for A Question of Balance.

From: Deirdre Cobbin
To: Lisa Roberts
Subject: thought for the day or week or...
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2017 22:00:53 +0000

I have a project someone should carry out. I've been watching the deaf sign language translator lady when ABC TV gives its interviews re cyclone etc in Qld and am impressed at the useful expressions on her face...realised when look at actual politician (but not their quite good premier lady) delivering the actual words....the amount of emotion and possibly honest sentiment the translator puts into her rendition is sooo much more enlightening than the deadpan nothingness on the pasty face of the audio version delivery of his own mssage.

so how about two versions of the exact same message...the one with the hearing able person saying his (usually a his) own words as is; and a second version where only the audio track is audible and vision is only of the deaf signlanguage translator (she isn't deaf but you know what I mean)

and have one randomly assigned group of viewers independently rate what each (independently, not as a group) what he/she thought the message was; whether they trusted the person's words, or the advice of the person etc

I am prepared to hypothesise that more people would prefer the deaf version because there are actually what appear to be real emotions involved in the message deliverer's style.

Now modify to your already already filmed segments by artist and climate change scientist and do same paired comparisons...so eg take artist vision and audio and get one random subject to rate on whatever you want to rate it on; get another random rater to only have exact same audio track by artist but the vision is of the deaf signing person and not the artist, and rate that person's message as believable etv...ie the message content; and of course same treatment for scientist and two equivalent groups

You would only need a few decent filmed segments and do 10 or so indiv. raters for each

I suspect the delivery of believable gesturing and other non-verbal elements will be important in getting message across.