Information for Presenters

Plenary Speakers

Plenary speakers are welcome to use the laptop in the Breakwater Ballroom or their own laptops for presentation. HDMI and USB-C connectivity will be available. The AV team will work with speakers to set up individual talks and make sure that specific needs are met.

If using audio or video files in your presentation, please make sure to set up your talk early with our AV team. Allow at least one hour before your talk to make sure everything works properly.

If you would like to use the laptop provided in the Breakwater ballroom, please bring your talk in PowerPoint or Keynote on a USB thumb drive. Make sure you have a backup on email, or Dropbox, in case the thumb drive has compatibility issues.

Symposium Speakers

Symposium speakers will use their own laptops to present. Speakers in the same session are highly encouraged to consolidate their talks on one laptop to save time in transitioning between talks and to avoid connectivity issues.

Symposium Chairs should determine ahead of time which speaker’s laptop will be used and make sure talks are formatted properly.

Open Papers / Lightning Talks

Open paper speakers may use PowerPoint, Keynote, or PDF for their presentations and are asked to keep their talks to a maximum of 10 slides (excluding title and acknowledgments).

Lightning talk speakers will only have a SINGLE slide to present, and it must be in PDF format with no animations. Slide should represent only ONE major finding and not have lengthy blocks of text.

All open paper and lightning talk slides must be uploaded using the Dropbox links provided by email by 12:00 PM on Wednesday April 26.

A laser pointer will be available in each room for use by the presenters.

Staying on Time

All conference talks must stay on time. With such a busy schedule, even a few extra minutes for one speaker can compromise the entire session. Session chairs are asked, encouraged and incentivized to be very strict with timing. If a speaker exceeds their allotted time, the session chair will be forced to use Squawky, pictured on the right, which is far more effective than the Oscar speech-ending play-off music and only slightly less controversial.

Each room will be equipped with two timers, one for the podium, visible to the speaker, and one to the session chair/timekeeper. Talk times are as follows:

Plenary talks ............................................... 40 minutes

Each talk also includes a 5 minute introduction, and a 5 minute Q&A period after the talk.

Symposium talks ....................................... 15 minutes

Each symposium includes 4 talks, 15 minutes each, followed by 2-3 minutes of Q&A and a 30 minute general discussion at the end (50/50 rule; see below).

Open papers ................................................10 minutes

Each open paper is followed by 2 minutes of Q&A. If the speaker desires additional time for Q&A, the talk can be shortened to 8 minutes.

Lightning talks .............................................. 5 minutes

Each lightning talk is 5 minutes and is limited to 1 slide in PDF format (think digital poster). It is followed by 1 minute of Q&A.

50/50 Discussion Rule

Following our time-honored tradition, symposia are designed to facilitate ample discussion. Exactly 50% of the alloted symposium time must be used for discussion, in an attempt to resolve issues and collectively decide on future experiments. This means timekeepers need to be vigilant about ensuring that all speakers stay on time and that sufficient time is preserved for discussion.

Communications Culture

LEARNMEM™ fosters a culture of inclusion at all levels and encourages active scientific discourse to take place in a respectful and psychologically safe environment. To promote this discourse, we have some suggestions:

• We encourage you to use first names in referring to each other and to dismiss titles and ranks to level the playing field;

• We encourage you to be brave, ask questions, and challenge ideas;

• We encourage you to take opportunities to learn new things, meet new people, and think about new experiments and collaborations;

• We encourage you to let go of dogma and constantly ask “why not?”; and

• We encourage you to take risks and think outside the box and encourage others to do the same.

Poster Size Requirements

48 inches wide (4 feet) x 36 inches tall (3 feet)

Poster Set up Times

Tips for Poster Presentations

• Make sure your walk-through takes no more than three minutes. Do not hold your visitors hostage!

• Arrange the poster in columns not rows.

• Focus your message – what is the one thing you want people to remember?

• Convey your message visually.

• Be readable from about 4 - 6 feet away.

• Use font size of at least 24 pt for regular text, 42 -60 pt for titles, and >70 pt for titles

• Be clearly organized. Use panels and sections.

• Avoid technical jargon and undefined acronyms.

• Avoid using lengthy blocks of text.

• Choose colors carefully and pay attention to contrast (e.g. dark print on light background).

• Use spacing appropriately to increase visual appeal and enhance readability.

• Make sure you preview your file before you print.

• Proofread your poster before printing!

QALMRI Format for Posters

After: Kosslyn & Rosenberg (2001). Psychology: The Brain, The Person, The World. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Q stands for Question

All research begins with a question, and the point of the research is to answer it. Your introduction should be concise and serve only to set up your question.

A stands for Alternatives

You should have at least two testable, falsifiable hypotheses that are mutually exclusive; a null hypothesis and an alternative hypothesis.

Poster Printing

SoCal Poster Board is the LEARNMEM™’s pinboard supplier. They can print your poster and deliver it directly to the venue for your convenience.

Cost of printing a 36 x 48 inch poster is $84 for paper poster (8-mil semi-gloss poster paper) and $132 for fabric poster (15-mil water resistant matte anticrease fabric). Orders must be placed by April 18th to avoid RUSH charges. Make sure you mention the conference when placing the order.

Your poster will be waiting for you at the Whitewater Ballroom on Tuesday, April 25th after 12 PM.

SoCal Poster Board LLC (818) 296-9449 info@socalposterboard.com https://socalposterboard.com

L stands for Logic

How did the design allow you to distinguish among the alternatives? Set up the expectations for your results and how they might support your hypothesis.

M stands for Method

What procedures did you use? What variables were manipulated and what variables were measured? Include other important experimental details.

R stands for Results

What was the outcome of the experiment? Show the results of statistical analyses using plots and visuals. Show individual data points whenever possible.

I stands for Inferences

What conclusions can be drawn from the data? What are other potential explanations? How successful were you in addressing the question of interest?