If you read a list of words, are you most likely to remember those that come at the beginning, the middle, or the end?
Experiments in the 60s found that when participants are presented with a list of words, they only tend to remember the first few and the last few. The words in the middle are usually forgotten. It was concluded that words early in the list entered the long term memory (primacy effect) and words at the end entered the short term memory (recency effect). Displacement forced words in the middle out of the limited short term memory and they hadn’t had enough processing time to enter the long term memory.
Whether you're writing a sentence, a list, a paragraph, a chapter, or even an email, you should place the most valuable information at the beginning or the end if you want it to stick in your readers' brains.
This effect was introduced in the 70s when it was discovered the same positive feeling is released in the brain when we hear information that we know is true as when we hear information that we’ve heard before. Because of this, repetition is often confused with validity. This behavioral bias is used in many industries where public opinion is important, but perhaps most commonly in politics.
While you should never mislead your readers, there's an important lesson for content writers here. Consistent messaging that drums home the same ideas will eventually persuade your audience. Just avoid sounding too repetitive in your word choice.
Some estimates claim that we use metaphors every 25 words, yet we don’t even realize it since metaphors are so embedded in our language. Metaphors have a powerful effect on perceptions. A recent Stanford study gave participants two versions of the same text on crime in a hypothetical city. One version described crime as a “virus infecting” the city and the other as a “beast preying” on the city. Everything else remained the same. The participants were then asked to come up with solutions to solve crime: The participants with the “beast” metaphor opted for punitive measures, whereas those with the “virus” metaphor chose more reformative measures. Metaphors can also create physical sensations in our brains. Another study found that using “a rough day” rather than “a bad day” activated the part of the brain associated with texture.
To engage apathetic readers, you can use metaphors and textural adjectives to activate wider parts of their brain. Although be warned, overused and cliched metaphors have a reduced effect.