Richard Shotton

speaker

1,228 appearances 5 recordings 4 series first heard Jan 2026 last heard 27 Jun

Richard Shotton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.

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Modern Wisdom · 11 Psychology Tricks From the World’s Best Brands - Richard Shotton - #1053 · 31 Jan 2026 podcast

So the original study was by Ian Begg back in 1972.

And he recruits a group of people, reads them 22 word phrases.

He doesn't mention it to the participants, but half of these two word phrases are what he calls abstract concepts.

So they're intangible ideas like basic truth.

Half of the phrases he reads out are what he calls concrete phrases.

So they describe physical things like a white horse.

So he reads out this list, and then later on he asks people what they can remember.

And his key finding is people can remember on average 9% of the abstractions, but 36% of the concrete phrases.

So you are four times more likely to remember the thing that you can visualise.

And Begg's explanation applies just as much to 2026.

His argument is vision's the most powerful of our senses.

So if you use language we can visualise,

It's very sticky.

But if you stay in this realm of abstraction, like focus or productivity, people can understand what you're saying, but they'll struggle to remember it a minute or two after you've mentioned it.

Well, coming up with that on the fly would be very hard.

Freestyle rapping might be a little... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This could go disastrously wrong.

But maybe concrete... Sorry, maybe specific examples of people doing it.

Red Bull didn't say Red Bull gives you energy, which is abstract.

They said Red Bull gives you wings.

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