The major advantage of participation in a poster session is that it provides an opportunity for the presenter and the audience to talk with one another. A physical arrangement similar to an exhibit area is used to foster this interaction. During this period, the audience will move through the poster displays, stopping to interact with those who are presenting research that is of interest to them. Thus, the interaction between the presenters and the audience is likely to be more meaningful for both than is typically the case in one- speaker paper sessions or symposia.
Poster sessions are popular at psychology conventions.
Poster sessions resemble high school science fairs. The display, or poster , is arranged to clearly tell someone about the research study. The presenter also prepares 50 or more copies of a brief version of the paper to be given to those who are interested. If you run out of copies, have a sign-up sheet so visitors can request for you to mail them a copy after the convention. Besides reducing public speaking anxiety, poster sessions permit a much greater number of simultaneous presentations than possible with paper sessions, and encourage good discussions between researchers with similar interests .