Alison Gopnik:
You might think, "Oh well, if you want to keep your kids from being anxious, you should just protect them from bad things" A metaphor that I'd like to use is if you're a gardener, you can't dictate how every plant is going to come out and you wouldn't want that. What you want to do is create a context where many, many different kinds of plants can thrive.
Elizabeth Koch:
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Koch. We all live inside our own personal private Perception Box built by our genes and the physical, social, and cultural environment in which we were born and raised. In this podcast, we explore how although the walls of this mental box are always present, they can expand in states like awe, wonder, and curiosity or contract in response to anxiety, fear, and anger. I'd like to introduce our esteemed hosts, two incredible and distinguished minds.
Dr. Heather Berlin, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. And Dr. Christof Koch, chief scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current meritorious investigator and former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Welcome to the Science of Perception Box.
Heather Berlin:
Hi everybody. Welcome to Science of Perception Box. I'm your co-host, Dr. Heather Berlin.
Christof Koch:
And I'm Dr. Christof Koch.
Heather Berlin:
So every week we feature an aspect of Science of Perception Box box highlighting the latest research together with our expert guests. And this week we're exploring the world through the lens of children, including the often overlooked strategies and tactics that young children use to decode the world around them. And I cannot imagine a more groundbreaking and qualified researcher to explore this topic with on the show than Alison Gopnik.
Alison Gopnik is a world-renowned expert in child development, a psychologist, and a philosopher. She's authored several popular books including The Scientist in the Crib, The Philosophical Baby, and The Gardener and the Carpenter. She's the winner of the 2021 Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization. She's also a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and her research explores how young children come to know about the world around them. Her work is informed by the theory-theory, which is the idea that children develop and change intuitive theories of the world in much the same way that scientists like us do.
So first we want to open up with our own connection to adolescence and parenting. So Christof, you're a father, has raising children changed how you think about your Perception Box.
Christof Koch:
Well, I guess you see viscerally in your kids how their mind is constructed and how their perception works, whether it's narrow or broadly is learned by them. But then you're also astound it. I mean, you point of certain things, you tell them what's important in life and in culture, and what's not so important. And so they learn your biases partly, right? But then you're also astound when 10 or 20 years later they tell you, "I thought this was," I remember I watched many times with my daughter this movie Alice in Wonderland, the original, Walt Disney really a wonderful movie. And I thought, "Gabi, I thought you loved it." And then she says, "No, you did."
Heather Berlin:
I remember actually my father said to me when I was growing up, he's like, "I've already forgotten what you haven't even learned yet." That stuck with me. But on that note, anyway, let's welcome Alison to the-
Alison Gopnik:
So pleased to be here.
Heather Berlin:
Podcast. We're so excited for you to be here. So let's just start with the basics. How do children learn?
Alison Gopnik:
Well, that's a good question. One thing we know is that children are designed to learn. That's the whole point of childhood. So the reason why we have this very long period of immaturity when we can't do anything that's very useful in the world is exactly because that gives us an opportunity to learn. And if you look across many, many species of animals, you see this interesting relationship between how long a period of childhood a species has and how much they rely on learning roughly what we somewhat anthropocentrically would say how smart they are. But roughly speaking, how large their brains are, how much they can learn about new environments, that's all connected with that long period of childhood.
And most of that learning actually seems to happen in that early period, in that period of childhood. And we're starting to understand how children do it, and they do a lot of the same things that scientists do. They pay attention to statistics, which might seem a bit surprising if you ask them about, what is p 0.05, they won't understand what you're saying. But if you give them statistical data, you will give them a bunch of sounds or a bunch of events that have a particular statistical pattern, they'll pick out that pattern right away.
One of the things that we've studied now for the last 30 years is how children make causal conclusions. Because understanding the causal structure of the world is really important.
So here's a simple example. You give the child the R extremely inexpensive piece of equipment compared to you neuroscientists. The R equivalent of the fMRI is a little box that costs 49.99. It's a little box that lights up and plays music when you put some things on it, but not others. We call it our blicket detector.
So here's what happens. 24 month old, still a baby, you put a red block on the machine and it activates four out of six times. Now you put a blue block on the machine and it activates four out of 18 times. Now you say to the baby, "Can you make it go?" Now for both of them they've seen that it worked four times. But if they were doing the statistics, if they were doing the probability, they'd say, "Oh no, this one is more likely to make it go than that one." And that's exactly what they do. And that's just one example where even this is 24-month-olds who are just starting to walk and talk are making these kinds of statistical inferences.
The other thing that they do is that they do experiments, except that when 24-month-olds do experiments, we call it getting into everything. So if you watch the way that a two-year-old is just completely driven sometimes at the cost of their survival to go out into the world, and make things happen, and see what will happen next. It turns out that when you look carefully, it isn't just that they're kind of behaving randomly. They're actually doing exactly the things that they need to do to find out the most about the world around.
Heather Berlin:
But do you think this is happening unconsciously? I mean, they're born natural statisticians to navigate the world, but this is all unconscious mechanisms that are occurring.
Alison Gopnik:
It's a good question, and it's one of the ones that I've thought about. We don't have very systematic evidence about this, but here's my view. My hypothesis is I think they're quite conscious of their conclusions. So if you ask them, by the time they can talk a three-year-old, three-year-olds will tell you all about this is what happened. The block went on, this is the reason why it works, this is how it works. But they're not at all good at tracking the evidence that led them to believe that.
So if you ask them about the red and blue blocks, they'll say something like, "Well okay, the red one always made it go, and the blue would never made it go," even when they're trying to do the statistics. So I think they're very conscious of their contents of their minds, what they think is true, what they believe. I think that's true even with infants. But they're not very good at tracking why they thought that or where it came from. And that's true of course for adults as well.
Christof Koch:
Do you think they're actually building in their mind a model of causality that this thing makes that thing happen?
Alison Gopnik:
Exactly. And we've actually shown that. So part of the inspiration for this was that we started out collaborating with people in the philosophy of science and computer science. We're trying to design computers that could do causal inference. That would obviously be a really important thing to do. It's a big piece of current AI is, could you get a system that could figure out causality?
And what we found was that the representations that those computer scientists were talking about turned out to be the best way of describing what the kids are thinking, what's going on in the kids' minds. So they really do have little theories, little networks of here's one variable, and here's another variable, and here's how they're connected. And that can even be pretty complicated, four or five different variables with different kinds of-
Christof Koch:
It seems to support the idea, which is very much in resonance with perception box thinking that causality is constructed by the mind. It's not just given at birth, but it's something we infer or our mind infers about the world.
Alison Gopnik:
Yeah. I think the way that a lot of philosophers, including me would think about this is there are all sorts of things that are happening out in the world. And when we say that it's causal, what we mean is if we did something to cause, it would have an effect. And that makes it different from just prediction for example, or just association. There's something more abstract about thinking that there's really a causal relationship there, but there could be lots and lots of different... I'm not sure that from a god's eye view that you'd look at and say, "Okay, these are the causal relationships and these aren't." But from a practical point of view, it's really important-
Christof Koch:
It given by our experience. So it's really [inaudible 00:09:54]. It's given by our experience, our experience of causality. When I said, "Oh, that made that thing happen," it's based on my exposure early on in childhood of these events where I learned to associate A, that A always precedes B.
Alison Gopnik:
Well, except that there's a couch to that, which is that's true. But it's also true that once you know about causal structure, one of the things that means is that you can build a rocket that goes to the moon that has never occurred in history before.
So that suggests the fact that you can have the causal relationship and then you can make things happen. James Woodward, who's the great philosopher has talked about this, his book is called Making Things Happen.
So the thing about causal inference, even though you have to go from your experience and you're never sure that you're right, and you could always be wrong, is that it lets you go out and make things happen in the world. And that suggests that you're really tracking something that's real about the world. And kids very much want to track the things that are real.
Heather Berlin:
But how does that change in adulthood? I mean, theoretically we're always learning. The brain is always wanting to learn about new information and make calls, inferences and whatnot. So are there any things that children are better at doing than adults and what are they not as good at doing?
Alison Gopnik:
So there's a very helpful distinction that comes up in computer science. Also is nicely alliterative between exploitation and exploration. And the idea is this. Suppose you're trying to solve some problem solve. Well, one thing you can do is you can kind of get a good enough solution so that you can actually go out and implement it and get the thing that you want. That's the exploitation kind of attitude.
Another thing you could do is you could just try a million different things and see whether any of them work or don't work, what the outcomes are going to be. And that's exploration.
And it turns out that you can show mathematically that you can't get a system that will simultaneously give you the best exploitation and the best exploration. But you just think about it intuitively. And again, I think thinking about the difference between kids and adults is a good way of describing this.
Your three-year-old is going to be very good at learning new things, very bad at getting his snow suit on so that he can get to preschool in the morning. And part of the reason why he's really bad at getting his new snow suit on and getting to preschool is he keeps saying, "What's that? There's a little tiny dust thing on the carpet. And look, there's an airplane that just went on high."
And my favorite example is my three-year-old grandson. He thinks the most awesome thing in the world is the garbage truck. And of course, if you think about it, he's right. Garbage men take these giant things and throw them into the back of the garbage truck, and then it turns around. So his attitude is, "Why do you want me to get my snow suit on when I could be watching this amazing thing, the garbage truck?"
Heather Berlin:
But it's a curiosity too. I am trying to walk my son to school, he's seven and we're late. And I'm like, "Come on, let's just go. We got to go." I have this goal in mind. And he is like, "Oh look, the daffodil." He is going to pick the flowers and look at the things on the trees. And part of me, it breaks me because I want him to be exploring and excited about things. But then I'm like, "Okay, we have"-
Christof Koch:
But does this also mean that your son or your grandson experiences the world on a different way because they're constantly, they may not even have, I think as some of the earlier researchers shown, this focus of attention that they see this vast blossoming field of stuff happening and they're constantly distracted by it.
Alison Gopnik:
Yeah. So the metaphor that I've used is when you talk about the kind of adult exploit, attention and consciousness, it's like a spotlight. So that's an old idea. Consciousness is like a spotlight. Everything else that you're not paying attention to kind of goes dark. And then you just have this brightly lit spotlight. And what I've argued is for kids, it's more like a lantern. It's like everything is equally illuminated.
And there's some beautiful new neuroscience work which actually shows that the children are representing more of the world, representing more of a stimulus than adults are when you give them the same problem. What they did in these experiments was they set up a situation where you could either pay attention. I have to remember the details. You could either pay attention to say the color or shape of a stimulus, for example. And what happens is for grownups, if you say, "I want you to track the color of this," then you'll track the color and you'll just forget about the shape.
If you do the same kind of experiment with children, they're not as good at just remembering the color. But then at the end, if you say, "All right, now I'm going to give you kind of a trick question. What were the shapes that you saw?" The grownups will have forgotten that they weren't paying attention, but the children will have remembered it.
It turns out that if you look at shape versus movement, so you look at whether you're encoding the shape that something is or what direction it moved in, different parts of the brain are encoding shape and encoding movement. So now, suppose you show someone something where there's a movement in the background and a shape in the foreground, and you say, "I want you to pay attention to the movement," or "I want you to pay attention to the shape." It turns out that if you do that grown-ups will pay attention to the thing you said, and then they won't encode any information about the other thing. So if you ask them at the end, "Well, what was the shape?" They won't tell you what the shape is.
Children on the other hand seem to be understanding something even about the things that they weren't paying attention to. And now if you look at their brain decoding, you can see that both the shape and motion parts of the brain are encoding the information.
Heather Berlin:
I think it's a sort of a cost and a benefit, because the prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until around mid-twenties, and that is what helps us focus the attention and suppress out extraneous information. So I think that it's an advantage and a disadvantage. And it's a disadvantage, and they're not as good at being focused. But they are taking in much more information. And there could be some advantages of that. And I think a lot of adults are working very hard to try to turn down their prefrontal cortex so they can get back to that basic childlike curiosity and playfulness. Right? And there's a joy in that.
So do you think that adults should be aiming to get more like children? So the defocus of attention, letting go of prefrontal cortex activation, taking it all in? Or who has the advantage and the disadvantage here?
Alison Gopnik:
Yeah. I mean, I think again, what comes out of the computer science is it's a trade-off. I mean, it's just one of those intrinsic trade-offs. There isn't on a clear advantage. And what you want is you want systems that can do both.
And interestingly, the solution that computer scientists completely independent of not knowing anything about kids come to is start out exploring, start out with what they call a high-temperature search, start out doing things that are kind of noisy, and random, and all over the place, and then gradually go into exploit mode.
And the human brain seems to be kind of like that, which starts out with this enormous scope of potential neural connections that you could have. And then as you get older, the ones that you use a lot get to be myelinated, they're more efficient, and then you lose a lot of other potential.
And again, I don't think it's an advantage of one of versus the other. It's a trade-off. And you wouldn't want a three-year-old to be the head of your department or the president of your university. There's lots of reasons why, there's a reason why everyone always celebrates the-
Heather Berlin:
The executive control. Yes.
Christof Koch:
It has to do with the way we raise it and the way we live in society. If we need people that can focus for eight hours a day just on this one thing, then we need to train kids early on. I've seen the difference.
So my grandson, Ulysses, he first went to kindergarten in Singapore where it's all about sitting down, focusing, and ultimately trying to take tests. Well he's now in Norway where it's much more explore this buzzing confusion that is live. And I think it just maximizes for different goals, to your point.
Alison Gopnik:
But I think to get back to Heather's point about adults, I don't think adults ever can get themselves back to the state as open indeed as a three-year-old. As long as we've been human, adults have done things that give them a kind of break from the responsibilities of executive function. So staying up all night, having a retreat, having a religious ritual, having a time and a place where you say, "Right now I'm not going to be worried about those everyday things that I have to do." Just for-
Heather Berlin:
It's still letting go. Or even just I think sometimes hanging out, spending time with children and seeing the world through their eyes. I know when I'm with my children, it just forces me to be so present and immediate, and you can almost see the world through them and get back a little bit into that childlike state. I think the key is maybe turning the knob up or down.
Alison Gopnik:
Well, I think it's interesting because when you see what are the sort of things that adults do that seem to have that effect, there are things that put you in a functional state that's more like a child. So traveling for example, is an example that I've given. When you're in a new place, you're sort of forced into the childhood state.
And this speaks to the perception of point because one thing that we've looked at in our work, this also gets back to the point about how are they doing these causal inferences, is the thought that there's something like a kind of Bayesian inference process that's going on. And we've shown that even very young children are doing something like Bayesian inference.
So Bayesian inference is that if you have a lot of evidence for something, if you have a really good reason to believe that something is true, it should take a lot to get you to budge you from that belief. If you've done something and you get lots and lots of reason to believe that this is true, then you should hang on to that. You should have, that's what Bayesians call your prior. You should pay attention to your prior.
And a lot of what we do is grownups is saying, "I've learned a lot. I know how the world works. Now I'm going to take everything that I know already and I'm going to put it to use to try and solve this problem. That's it." But if you're a child and even independently of all the special break characteristics of children, if you don't know as much, then almost automatically you're going to be more open to learning. That just kind of makes sense.
So doing something like going to a new place where you don't know exactly how everything works. Or an example that I like is when you look at a lot of artists who have late styles, a lot of times what artists will do consciously or not is kind of disrupt the thing that they've been skilled at. So Matisse, who's a great painter, says, "No, I'm going to do cutouts," something that he's never done before, that he doesn't actually have any skill about.
Christof Koch:
He purposefully try to put their brain back into the state where they're forced to learn.
Alison Gopnik:
Yeah, I think that's the idea. "I've become so skilled at painting that I can't get to new places in my painting. Let me try something that I've never done before. Let me try something that's going to be awkward to begin with." And I think those are all examples of the kinds of things that grownups can do that put them back.
But I agree with you Heather. I mean, one of the things that I think makes being a parent, being a caregiver so profound is that on the one hand, it's like the most responsible adult thing that we ever do, taking care of other people. But on the other hand, it means that you can be in a state at least vicariously of seeing what the world looks like from the eyes of a child.
And I think you're right. My own personal view is that I do my meditation by taking care of my grandchildren. And I'll schedule in, "Okay, I want three hours with my six-month-old grandniece once a week because that's when I get out of being in my own head." And I'm in the world in which garbage trucks are the most awesome thing that you can imagine.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah, it's like you enter their mindset. But I think it's the concept of novelty. When you're young, everything is new and everything is exciting. And then there is this sort of cynicism as you age of, "I've been there, done that." But if you can keep the novelty, and then what you're saying about changing skill sets is that creativity. It's dopamine really. It's like keep the dopamine. So if you paint the same way every day, day, after day, after day, there's nothing stimulating about that anymore. And I think that's what keeps people young is the curiosity, the novelty, the creativity. And that's very childlike. So I think that's as a tip to adults is to do something different, do something novel, walk a different route to work.
Alison Gopnik:
Which in a way is a way of making yourself into a child again, right? Because you're purposely... I mean, it's like evolution is handicapping the children, right? Evolution has designed it so that the children aren't terribly capable and have to learn everything.
And of course that's not true for all species. So if you look at chicks for example, there's lots of animals that mature really, really quickly. And there's a beautiful study by a biologist named Emily Snell-Rood who even with insects, if you compare butterflies that learn how to decide, which these are cabbage white butterflies. So they have to decide which kind of vegetables in my garden are you going to destroy, right? And some of them it turns out just have reflexes. They see something that's green and then they munch on it.
But there's others that actually will float around from leaf to leaf and sample them and decide, "Okay, this is the one that has the best outcome." And then they'll go and eat that leaf. Now all of these butterflies are living in this very short time, but the ones who are learning live longer and have fewer eggs.
Heather Berlin:
That's why I think it's a link to longevity in some ways. The brain can atrophy just like any other organ, and there's a stimulating factor to it of learning new things, the novelty. And it is getting back to a youthful type mindset.
But speaking of this concept of perception box, isn't childhood a time when our perception boxes are forming? And do we end up then getting, once it's formed, stuck inside a particular perception box? Or is there still opportunities to change?
Alison Gopnik:
Well, one thing that we found consistently is most of the time if you give younger kids a task and older kids and adults a task, the grownups will do better because they're better at executive function.
But we found that there's a very characteristic kind of task where children actually do better. And that's if the solution is unexpected, or novel, or not the obvious solution. And that gets back to this Bayesian point about it's not your prior. Say we give children one of our blicket problems, and the solution's not an obvious one. It would be weird for a machine to work this way. And then we show a bunch of data that says, yeah, the machine's working in this weird way both to adults and children.
Adults just stick to the thing that they thought when they came into the experiment and children will change their minds. And interestingly, what we found is that for a physical thing like the boxes, then four year olds are most flexible. And then when you hit school age around six or seven, you become a bit less flexible. And then in adolescence, you really start looking like an adult.
But if we give the kids a social problem, a problem about why did someone do something, why was he not willing to go on the trampoline in the schoolyard? Then what you see is the four-year olds are the most flexible. They're the best at thinking with lots of different reasons why that could be. They get less flexible in school age. But then the adolescents, the teenagers are the most flexible of all. So in a social context, the teenagers are most likely to think of something that's new or unexpected.
Christof Koch:
So how would that be explained by Bayesian priors? Because you would expect those priors over time just to become progressively-
Alison Gopnik:
Exactly.
Christof Koch:
In the final form.
Alison Gopnik:
So that's why I think part of it is just what you know. So as you know more, you see less. But I think part of it is actually what your brain is doing. And there's some evidence that in adolescence, the parts of your brain that are involved in social cognition and understanding are sort of re-energized, reorganizing, they're becoming more plastic again. And that kind of fits your intuition, that it's this adolescents, the teenagers who are the cutting edge of social innovation, and social creativity, and social change. I think the three and four-year-olds a lot of the time and they're thinking about social things, but a lot of time they're thinking about how does this world around me work?
Christof Koch:
I remember having hung out with magician at the Magic Castle in LA. Many magician disliked the performance of young children. The young child is sort of likely to point out, "What's he doing with his hand behind his back?"
Alison Gopnik:
Yeah, I've always loved that. And I've had the same reaction from magicians. When my book came out, I had a lovely letter from a store detective. And he said, "Look, what I do is I stand. I'm fully visible. I'm standing up on the balcony looking down to try and see if anyone's pick-pocketing." And he said, "And none of the grownups see me, but the children, I'll have the children waving up, making contact." Because they are aware. They're open to the possibility that there's someone standing up high. And I think it's the same point as the magicians.
Heather Berlin:
They're attending to these different things. And you've written about that parenting as we know it, is kind of like a new concept, the way that we parent. Can you explain some of that? Are there these preconceived notions in Western society about how we parent or raise children and are they incorrect?
Alison Gopnik:
So one of the things that I've been working on recently is caregiving. So this evolutionary trick of having a childhood where you can explore, that depends on having a grownup who's actually keeping you alive and taking care of you in that period. And it's something that's very characteristic and very deep about us humans that we care so much. We care for children, we care for elders, we care for the ill. And yet it's something that psychology kind of has, and not to mention politics and economics never paid much attention to. What's the special thing that you do when you care for someone, or particularly when you took care of children?
Christof Koch:
This is above and beyond the role of parents. You mean grandparents or-
Alison Gopnik:
Caregivers in general. And we know that one of the things that's really distinctive about humans is that we have a much wider range of people taking care of children than say even chimpanzees do.
So for chimps, it's mostly the biological mother who's doing most of the caregiving. But as long as humans have been around, we've had what the anthropologist Sarah Hrdy calls, had allomothers. We've had a whole, this is the old slogan about it takes the village. And we have my favorite adaptation, which is we actually have postmenopausal grandmothers, which is very unusual and sort of evolutionarily paradoxical, why am I here? I haven't been fertile for 20 years.
Christof Koch:
Why are you sticking around-
Alison Gopnik:
I should be gone. And there's a lot of evidence that it's actually having that wide range of caregivers that enables the children to learn as much as they do. And it's not just that they're being taken care of, but also that those elders are passing on all the information from their past experience. So that very distinctive cultural characteristic of human intelligence seems to come from those grandmothers. The grandfathers aren't quite as paradoxical as the grandmothers.
So you might think, "All right, I have to do this thing. I'm taking care of this child." If you've got that 35-year-old exploit mindset where you say, "Okay, well what do I do when I go to work? What do I do when I go to school? How do I accomplish something?" You might think about that caregiving as, "OKay, here's a set of goals that I want to accomplish. I want this child to come out of particular way and now I'm going to find the skills I need to accomplish those goals." Because that's mostly what we do when we're adults.
But if you think about it a bit, caregiving for anyone is like that. It's not about, "Well, I'm caring for someone because I want them to have certain kinds of properties, come out a particular way." An example that I like to give is we don't wive our husbands. It's not like we sort of say, "Well yeah, I think I'm doing a pretty good job. My husband is definitely showing better skills than he was when I married him. And he's definitely getting better." In fact, if anything, it's kind of the opposite. It's when you say, "Oh look, he needs me even more than he did when we got married." That's when love and care really-
Christof Koch:
So is it about compassion?
Alison Gopnik:
Exactly. So I think if you actually get more descriptions of what the intelligence of care is often in religious contexts than you do in economics, for example. So in economics and politics, you think I do something for you. You do something for me. But caring for someone isn't like that. And being with someone who needs us, it's one of the things that comes out of the happiness literature is that-
Heather Berlin:
It gives you purpose. Exactly. And that's why I think a lot of the parents are, "Oh, what do I do when my kids go, what is my purpose?" It's such a greater purpose for some people. But also, I mean, evolutionarily speaking, first of all, babies evolved to be really cute so we'd want to take care of them. I mean, they have all these features that make us, big eyes and all of that. But those who were more caring were more likely to have their children survive. And so there is some sort of evolutionary aspect to that, that is innate within us.
Alison Gopnik:
And I think there's a good argument, again, Sarah Hrdy has made this argument that a lot of our very distinctive human capacities for things like cooperation and our ability to have a really complicated social network. Again, the typical way of thinking about that is, "Oh, it's like a contract. I do this for you and you do this for me." But that's not what it's like. It's about I'm in a community or a family and I care about you, so I'm going to help you to do what you want, not because I think you're going to reciprocate sometimes. But a lot of times it's just caring to us. That seems to be very-
Heather Berlin:
It's also paving the way so allow the children to become who they're meant to be. They're allowing them to develop in-
Christof Koch:
And it even extends beyond our species. People care for their companion animals. That sort of seems a very sweet and innocent love. It's not driven by any profit. My dog or my cat that's 15 years old where if they inject every second day because of kidney issues, she's not going to give me anything except just-
Alison Gopnik:
The satisfaction of caring,
Christof Koch:
The satisfaction of caring.
Heather Berlin:
I mean, you do get some things. So my kids get love back. They're very, I cook and they're like, "I wanted this kind of pasta, not that kind of pasta." Like, "Oh okay, sorry." They can be very demanding. However, there are those moments of pure love and affection in return. Not that you're doing it for that, but it is a nice-
Alison Gopnik:
And I think in terms of our evolutionary history, this is something that, this is a point that people have made. For most times and places, children have had much more opportunity to explore and much less of the kind of contemporary investment parenting, middle class, American attitude towards being a parent is really unusual both culturally and historically.
And for most of history, what we've done is both provide this context of safety, and nurturance, and capacity to not worry about what's going to happen to you in the next second. And then a capacity to go out very broadly and explore, and for whole groups of children to go out very broadly and explore at a much younger age than we probably would than I think people-
Christof Koch:
But that doesn't happen today anymore.
Alison Gopnik:
And it's increasingly not happening. And I think it's not good for children or for the culture or the society at large.
Heather Berlin:
Children should have more time to free play and have unstructured time, and develop in the way as the scientists that they are-
Christof Koch:
Unsupervised. Is that what you mean, unsupervised? But that's very difficult to conceive of today. "Oh my God, my kids unsupervised since one hour. What are they doing?"
Alison Gopnik:
Well, there's a marvelous result that's one of my favorite results in psychology. So the oldest result in all of psychology going back to good old J.B. Watson and behaviorism is put the rat in a maze, and it goes down one arm and nothing happens. And then it goes down the other arm and it gets shocked, and it will never go down the arm where the shock was. That's reinforcement learning. It's the basis of modern AI. It's the basis of psychology.
But of course, if you think about it, in some ways that's a really smart thing to do. But if you think from this exploit-explore contrast, it's not such a smart thing to do. Because if you never go down that arm of the maze, you're never going to find out that maybe sometimes there's cheese at that end. Maybe the shock only comes once every 50 trials.
And in fact, that's a model for anxiety disorders. What happens in anxiety disorders is you avoid doing the thing that will have the negative outcome, and then you never learn that actually you're more confident than you thought and the world is less scary than you thought.
All right, here's the beautiful result. That is true for adult rats. So now what you do is you have the juvenile rat and you put the juvenile rat in the maze, and the juvenile rat would prefer to go down the arm where there's the shock.
Heather Berlin:
This reminds me of a teenager.
Alison Gopnik:
Exactly, it's funny because it's like with rats, they mature pretty quickly so it's a little hard to tell what exactly is the-
Heather Berlin:
What age they are.
Alison Gopnik:
What age they are. But it's not the newborns, but it's somewhere in between there.
Heather Berlin:
So why?
Alison Gopnik:
Here's the catch. Yeah, okay. You might think why, right? Yeah. It seems so bizarre. They'll only do it if the mother is present. So if they can smell the mother, then that's a signal that says, "All right, find out, explore. Even if you get shocked, it's worth it to get the information."
Heather Berlin:
So that's if you would say, I mean they have a healthy attachment.
Alison Gopnik:
Exactly.
Heather Berlin:
With the mother, and they feel safe enough that they can explore a dangerous area. I mean getting into-
Christof Koch:
So what implication, if any, does it have for modern childhood?
Alison Gopnik:
So the thought is that what you need in childhood is not to have a mother who's saying, "Don't go there. There might be a shock." What you need is a mother who's just there. And we started doing some work showing that children actually think this, that here's a background, here's a context where you're going to be safe, bad things are not going to happen to you. And that's just the fact that here's a mom, or a caregiver, a grandmother, a father, or an uncle-
Heather Berlin:
It's like a safety, a source of safety that allows you to have this exploratory behavior,
Alison Gopnik:
I think there's this beautiful sort of complementarity between this capacity we have for care, this capacity we have to say, "Look, you can do something. I'm going to make sure that it's all right in the long run." And then this capacity we have as children for exploration. It's that capacity that we have as grownups for care, which is not I'm going to shape you, I'm going to figure out what you're going to do. I'm going to make you grow up in a particular way. That's the thing that really is enabling children to explore. And that's the thing that's ultimately enabling human progress.
Christof Koch:
So today, we are confronted by this pandemic of the rise, particularly in the young of generalized anxiety. Right? Do you think that relates maybe partly to this new, more protective, "Oh my God, I always have to watch my kids every minute," style of parenting?
Alison Gopnik:
I think it's very hard to actually do the empirical work. We know that various kinds of psychopathology go in these, it's epidemiology. They go in these cycles where they go up and they go down, and no one ever can figure out exactly why. But it certainly seems plausible, theoretically, and other people have argued for this, that if you don't have a chance to explore, you kind of would predict from what we know about the mind and the brain, that anxiety would be a consequence of that.
And I think it's kind of interesting because it's sort of counterintuitive. You might think oh well, if you want to keep your kids from being anxious, you should just protect them from bad things. But it turns out that actually letting your child take risks, letting your child explore, letting your child see, "Okay, here's this terrible thing that happened, but now I've figured out how to cope with it. Here I am."
Heather Berlin:
Also, it's helping them build resilience. It like this book, The Coddling of the American Mind, which is exactly saying that. It's like you have to allow kids to have some adversity, almost to inoculate them and to teach them how to overcome and be resilient. But it's the balance. You don't want to be overly permissive where it's dangerous, just there's no supervision. Kids are getting hurt and not learning. But then too much over control can lead to anxiety where kids just feel like the world is a very unsafe place.
So I think it's parents today are put in this position of, what is the right balance between safety and protection? And allowing for exploration, and growth, and some resilience. Not everybody gets a trophy. Sometimes you don't get a trophy, and that's okay. You have to learn how to work through those feelings. And that breeds, that creates healthier adults over time.
Alison Gopnik:
I mean, again, I think it's all about trade-offs, and it's tricky about how you actually manage this trade-off of a metaphor that I've liked to use is it's like being a gardener. If you're a gardener, what you do is not... You can't dictate how every plant is going to come out. And you wouldn't want that, because you want your garden to thrive even when the weather changes, even when things are different, when conditions are different.
But what you want to do is create a context, create a place where many, many different kinds of plants can thrive and they can thrive in different kinds of ways. And that's my picture of why caregiving, at least for young children should be about, it's that sense of possibility.
There's a technical term in AI that I like called empowerment. And what you do in empowerment, that sounds kind of touchy feely, but it's a very technical computer science form of reinforcement learning, is you want your agents to be able to control as much of the environment as they can in as many different ways. So what-
Christof Koch:
You need to expose your kids to all sorts of different environments and learn how to deal with them.
Alison Gopnik:
So I think this is sort of a psychological version of what happens with the immune system in the same way that it turns out that having physically your immune system facing potential viruses makes you deal with them better. I think the same thing's true psychologically.
Heather Berlin:
I want to get a little into AI, because you've talked a little bit about comparing how children learn to the way AI models learn. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Alison Gopnik:
Yeah. So that's what, I've been doing versions of this for 20 years, but especially in the last five or six years, because the new AI systems depends so heavily on learning. People in AI have gotten more and more interested in development.
But I think the summary is that even these really powerful AI systems that depend a lot on just getting lots and lots of information, having lots of computational power, can't do things that even very little children are very good at doing.
So if you look at our little blanket detector experiments, the AIs, the large language models are very good at summarizing, here's what everybody knows about the fact that a glass will break if you drop it. But in our experiments, we're showing children causal relationships that they've never seen before and no one has ever seen before, because we're making them up for purposes of our experiment.
So if you give the system something that no one's ever seen before, nobody's ever posted anything about it on the internet, nobody's ever talked about it in a YouTube video, they're not very good as you might imagine at figuring them out. And even the little children are very good at figuring out new things.
People in AI talk a lot about out-of-distribution, things that are not the things that you were trained on or being able to have... This is a phrase I really like is the non-stationary environment. The non-stationary environment means, what happens when things change? What happens when the world is different from the world that you were trained on?
And the amazing thing about these contemporary AI methods is they can get trained on enormous amounts of data. But what happens when now you are in a different universe, now a different world than the world that generated all that data in the first place? And kids seem to be really good at dealing with that.
Heather Berlin:
Okay. So at the end of every episode, we ask a perception box question that we all answer. So my question I have is, what's a memory that you keep returning to and why?
Alison Gopnik:
Well, I had a kind of nice event about this with a memory recently where my grandson is. I'm now experiencing having grandchildren going through adolescence, which is a whole other experience. And I suddenly had a memory of when I was 13, being in my room at the top of the house that we lived in Philadelphia and being a terrible insomniac, and being up at 2:00 AM and running down to the garden and just having this sense that everything was so intense, and so amazing, and so wonderful, and so scary all at the same time. I mean, it was like a kind of psychedelic experience, but it was just being 13 and awake at 2:00 AM, and walking out into a rather grubby little garden in a rather grubby part of West Philadelphia. Felt as if it had that kind of significance. And I could see with my grandson, oh yeah, that's what's going on here. I can see some of that.
Heather Berlin:
I love that. And Christof?
Christof Koch:
Well, at roughly the same age my father gave me for good scholastic performance, a telescope at the time in Morocco. Now I remember because my older brother and I, we computed where the position of the planet Uranus in the sky. And I pointed the telescope at it. And there this blue image drifted into view. It was just, in talking about awe, I had this feeling of awe, the feeling down the scalp in your spinal cord, because there's this incredible degree of order and regularity. That's why I'm a scientist.
Heather Berlin:
I love that. And I love sort of, I'm thinking about perception box. What Alison was talking about was how the same experience walking in the garden could be so different for you depending on different places you are in life, different brain states that you're in. Whereas in one time it's just a boring garden. And at another point in your life, it's the most exciting experience, just having to do with the lens with which we see it through.
So my memory, I must be, I'm going to say maybe six or seven years old. And I'm in my grandmother's kitchen, and it's a cold winter day, and she's serving me the Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup out of the can. She would just dump it in the pan, and heat it up, and give it to me.
And she just sat with me and I'm eating my Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. And I just had the most feeling of safety, and security, and warmth, and happiness. There was no place I'd rather be than in her kitchen eating that chicken noodle soup. I'm getting emotional. But that memory is something, it's just a place I go back to as a safe place.
So on that note, thank you for being here. It's been wonderful. If you'd like to learn more about your own perception box, spend some time this week answering the same perception box questions that we asked our guests, and check out other questions on the website unlikelycollaborators.com.
You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and watch the show or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This has been Science of Perception Box created by Unlikely Collaborators in partnership with Pod People. I'm Dr. Heather Berlin.
Christof Koch:
And I'm Dr. Christof Koch. Thank you very much.
Cultivating More Childhood Wonder with Dr. Alison Gopnik
How can parents embrace science in order to give their children the best possible environment to thrive in? Cognitive development expert Dr. Alison Gopnik joins us to discuss how navigating challenges fosters healthier adults, likening caregiving to being a gardener creating an environment where various ”plants” can thrive in different conditions. Exposing children to diverse environments helps them develop better coping mechanisms, akin to how the immune system strengthens against viruses.
Dr. Gopnik is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, where she has taught since 1988. She is a world leader in cognitive science, particularly the study of children’s learning and development. She is the author of over 100 journal articles and several books including the best-selling and critically acclaimed popular books The Scientist in the Crib, The Philosophical Baby, and The Gardener and the Carpenter. She is a fellow of the Cognitive Science Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Alison Gopnik:
You might think, "Oh well, if you want to keep your kids from being anxious, you should just protect them from bad things" A metaphor that I'd like to use is if you're a gardener, you can't dictate how every plant is going to come out and you wouldn't want that. What you want to do is create a context where many, many different kinds of plants can thrive.
Elizabeth Koch:
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Koch. We all live inside our own personal private Perception Box built by our genes and the physical, social, and cultural environment in which we were born and raised. In this podcast, we explore how although the walls of this mental box are always present, they can expand in states like awe, wonder, and curiosity or contract in response to anxiety, fear, and anger. I'd like to introduce our esteemed hosts, two incredible and distinguished minds.
Dr. Heather Berlin, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. And Dr. Christof Koch, chief scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current meritorious investigator and former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Welcome to the Science of Perception Box.
Heather Berlin:
Hi everybody. Welcome to Science of Perception Box. I'm your co-host, Dr. Heather Berlin.
Christof Koch:
And I'm Dr. Christof Koch.
Heather Berlin:
So every week we feature an aspect of Science of Perception Box box highlighting the latest research together with our expert guests. And this week we're exploring the world through the lens of children, including the often overlooked strategies and tactics that young children use to decode the world around them. And I cannot imagine a more groundbreaking and qualified researcher to explore this topic with on the show than Alison Gopnik.
Alison Gopnik is a world-renowned expert in child development, a psychologist, and a philosopher. She's authored several popular books including The Scientist in the Crib, The Philosophical Baby, and The Gardener and the Carpenter. She's the winner of the 2021 Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization. She's also a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and her research explores how young children come to know about the world around them. Her work is informed by the theory-theory, which is the idea that children develop and change intuitive theories of the world in much the same way that scientists like us do.
So first we want to open up with our own connection to adolescence and parenting. So Christof, you're a father, has raising children changed how you think about your Perception Box.
Christof Koch:
Well, I guess you see viscerally in your kids how their mind is constructed and how their perception works, whether it's narrow or broadly is learned by them. But then you're also astound it. I mean, you point of certain things, you tell them what's important in life and in culture, and what's not so important. And so they learn your biases partly, right? But then you're also astound when 10 or 20 years later they tell you, "I thought this was," I remember I watched many times with my daughter this movie Alice in Wonderland, the original, Walt Disney really a wonderful movie. And I thought, "Gabi, I thought you loved it." And then she says, "No, you did."
Heather Berlin:
I remember actually my father said to me when I was growing up, he's like, "I've already forgotten what you haven't even learned yet." That stuck with me. But on that note, anyway, let's welcome Alison to the-
Alison Gopnik:
So pleased to be here.
Heather Berlin:
Podcast. We're so excited for you to be here. So let's just start with the basics. How do children learn?
Alison Gopnik:
Well, that's a good question. One thing we know is that children are designed to learn. That's the whole point of childhood. So the reason why we have this very long period of immaturity when we can't do anything that's very useful in the world is exactly because that gives us an opportunity to learn. And if you look across many, many species of animals, you see this interesting relationship between how long a period of childhood a species has and how much they rely on learning roughly what we somewhat anthropocentrically would say how smart they are. But roughly speaking, how large their brains are, how much they can learn about new environments, that's all connected with that long period of childhood.
And most of that learning actually seems to happen in that early period, in that period of childhood. And we're starting to understand how children do it, and they do a lot of the same things that scientists do. They pay attention to statistics, which might seem a bit surprising if you ask them about, what is p 0.05, they won't understand what you're saying. But if you give them statistical data, you will give them a bunch of sounds or a bunch of events that have a particular statistical pattern, they'll pick out that pattern right away.
One of the things that we've studied now for the last 30 years is how children make causal conclusions. Because understanding the causal structure of the world is really important.
So here's a simple example. You give the child the R extremely inexpensive piece of equipment compared to you neuroscientists. The R equivalent of the fMRI is a little box that costs 49.99. It's a little box that lights up and plays music when you put some things on it, but not others. We call it our blicket detector.
So here's what happens. 24 month old, still a baby, you put a red block on the machine and it activates four out of six times. Now you put a blue block on the machine and it activates four out of 18 times. Now you say to the baby, "Can you make it go?" Now for both of them they've seen that it worked four times. But if they were doing the statistics, if they were doing the probability, they'd say, "Oh no, this one is more likely to make it go than that one." And that's exactly what they do. And that's just one example where even this is 24-month-olds who are just starting to walk and talk are making these kinds of statistical inferences.
The other thing that they do is that they do experiments, except that when 24-month-olds do experiments, we call it getting into everything. So if you watch the way that a two-year-old is just completely driven sometimes at the cost of their survival to go out into the world, and make things happen, and see what will happen next. It turns out that when you look carefully, it isn't just that they're kind of behaving randomly. They're actually doing exactly the things that they need to do to find out the most about the world around.
Heather Berlin:
But do you think this is happening unconsciously? I mean, they're born natural statisticians to navigate the world, but this is all unconscious mechanisms that are occurring.
Alison Gopnik:
It's a good question, and it's one of the ones that I've thought about. We don't have very systematic evidence about this, but here's my view. My hypothesis is I think they're quite conscious of their conclusions. So if you ask them, by the time they can talk a three-year-old, three-year-olds will tell you all about this is what happened. The block went on, this is the reason why it works, this is how it works. But they're not at all good at tracking the evidence that led them to believe that.
So if you ask them about the red and blue blocks, they'll say something like, "Well okay, the red one always made it go, and the blue would never made it go," even when they're trying to do the statistics. So I think they're very conscious of their contents of their minds, what they think is true, what they believe. I think that's true even with infants. But they're not very good at tracking why they thought that or where it came from. And that's true of course for adults as well.
Christof Koch:
Do you think they're actually building in their mind a model of causality that this thing makes that thing happen?
Alison Gopnik:
Exactly. And we've actually shown that. So part of the inspiration for this was that we started out collaborating with people in the philosophy of science and computer science. We're trying to design computers that could do causal inference. That would obviously be a really important thing to do. It's a big piece of current AI is, could you get a system that could figure out causality?
And what we found was that the representations that those computer scientists were talking about turned out to be the best way of describing what the kids are thinking, what's going on in the kids' minds. So they really do have little theories, little networks of here's one variable, and here's another variable, and here's how they're connected. And that can even be pretty complicated, four or five different variables with different kinds of-
Christof Koch:
It seems to support the idea, which is very much in resonance with perception box thinking that causality is constructed by the mind. It's not just given at birth, but it's something we infer or our mind infers about the world.
Alison Gopnik:
Yeah. I think the way that a lot of philosophers, including me would think about this is there are all sorts of things that are happening out in the world. And when we say that it's causal, what we mean is if we did something to cause, it would have an effect. And that makes it different from just prediction for example, or just association. There's something more abstract about thinking that there's really a causal relationship there, but there could be lots and lots of different... I'm not sure that from a god's eye view that you'd look at and say, "Okay, these are the causal relationships and these aren't." But from a practical point of view, it's really important-
Christof Koch:
It given by our experience. So it's really [inaudible 00:09:54]. It's given by our experience, our experience of causality. When I said, "Oh, that made that thing happen," it's based on my exposure early on in childhood of these events where I learned to associate A, that A always precedes B.
Alison Gopnik:
Well, except that there's a couch to that, which is that's true. But it's also true that once you know about causal structure, one of the things that means is that you can build a rocket that goes to the moon that has never occurred in history before.
So that suggests the fact that you can have the causal relationship and then you can make things happen. James Woodward, who's the great philosopher has talked about this, his book is called Making Things Happen.
So the thing about causal inference, even though you have to go from your experience and you're never sure that you're right, and you could always be wrong, is that it lets you go out and make things happen in the world. And that suggests that you're really tracking something that's real about the world. And kids very much want to track the things that are real.
Heather Berlin:
But how does that change in adulthood? I mean, theoretically we're always learning. The brain is always wanting to learn about new information and make calls, inferences and whatnot. So are there any things that children are better at doing than adults and what are they not as good at doing?
Alison Gopnik:
So there's a very helpful distinction that comes up in computer science. Also is nicely alliterative between exploitation and exploration. And the idea is this. Suppose you're trying to solve some problem solve. Well, one thing you can do is you can kind of get a good enough solution so that you can actually go out and implement it and get the thing that you want. That's the exploitation kind of attitude.
Another thing you could do is you could just try a million different things and see whether any of them work or don't work, what the outcomes are going to be. And that's exploration.
And it turns out that you can show mathematically that you can't get a system that will simultaneously give you the best exploitation and the best exploration. But you just think about it intuitively. And again, I think thinking about the difference between kids and adults is a good way of describing this.
Your three-year-old is going to be very good at learning new things, very bad at getting his snow suit on so that he can get to preschool in the morning. And part of the reason why he's really bad at getting his new snow suit on and getting to preschool is he keeps saying, "What's that? There's a little tiny dust thing on the carpet. And look, there's an airplane that just went on high."
And my favorite example is my three-year-old grandson. He thinks the most awesome thing in the world is the garbage truck. And of course, if you think about it, he's right. Garbage men take these giant things and throw them into the back of the garbage truck, and then it turns around. So his attitude is, "Why do you want me to get my snow suit on when I could be watching this amazing thing, the garbage truck?"
Heather Berlin:
But it's a curiosity too. I am trying to walk my son to school, he's seven and we're late. And I'm like, "Come on, let's just go. We got to go." I have this goal in mind. And he is like, "Oh look, the daffodil." He is going to pick the flowers and look at the things on the trees. And part of me, it breaks me because I want him to be exploring and excited about things. But then I'm like, "Okay, we have"-
Christof Koch:
But does this also mean that your son or your grandson experiences the world on a different way because they're constantly, they may not even have, I think as some of the earlier researchers shown, this focus of attention that they see this vast blossoming field of stuff happening and they're constantly distracted by it.
Alison Gopnik:
Yeah. So the metaphor that I've used is when you talk about the kind of adult exploit, attention and consciousness, it's like a spotlight. So that's an old idea. Consciousness is like a spotlight. Everything else that you're not paying attention to kind of goes dark. And then you just have this brightly lit spotlight. And what I've argued is for kids, it's more like a lantern. It's like everything is equally illuminated.
And there's some beautiful new neuroscience work which actually shows that the children are representing more of the world, representing more of a stimulus than adults are when you give them the same problem. What they did in these experiments was they set up a situation where you could either pay attention. I have to remember the details. You could either pay attention to say the color or shape of a stimulus, for example. And what happens is for grownups, if you say, "I want you to track the color of this," then you'll track the color and you'll just forget about the shape.
If you do the same kind of experiment with children, they're not as good at just remembering the color. But then at the end, if you say, "All right, now I'm going to give you kind of a trick question. What were the shapes that you saw?" The grownups will have forgotten that they weren't paying attention, but the children will have remembered it.
It turns out that if you look at shape versus movement, so you look at whether you're encoding the shape that something is or what direction it moved in, different parts of the brain are encoding shape and encoding movement. So now, suppose you show someone something where there's a movement in the background and a shape in the foreground, and you say, "I want you to pay attention to the movement," or "I want you to pay attention to the shape." It turns out that if you do that grown-ups will pay attention to the thing you said, and then they won't encode any information about the other thing. So if you ask them at the end, "Well, what was the shape?" They won't tell you what the shape is.
Children on the other hand seem to be understanding something even about the things that they weren't paying attention to. And now if you look at their brain decoding, you can see that both the shape and motion parts of the brain are encoding the information.
Heather Berlin:
I think it's a sort of a cost and a benefit, because the prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until around mid-twenties, and that is what helps us focus the attention and suppress out extraneous information. So I think that it's an advantage and a disadvantage. And it's a disadvantage, and they're not as good at being focused. But they are taking in much more information. And there could be some advantages of that. And I think a lot of adults are working very hard to try to turn down their prefrontal cortex so they can get back to that basic childlike curiosity and playfulness. Right? And there's a joy in that.
So do you think that adults should be aiming to get more like children? So the defocus of attention, letting go of prefrontal cortex activation, taking it all in? Or who has the advantage and the disadvantage here?
Alison Gopnik:
Yeah. I mean, I think again, what comes out of the computer science is it's a trade-off. I mean, it's just one of those intrinsic trade-offs. There isn't on a clear advantage. And what you want is you want systems that can do both.
And interestingly, the solution that computer scientists completely independent of not knowing anything about kids come to is start out exploring, start out with what they call a high-temperature search, start out doing things that are kind of noisy, and random, and all over the place, and then gradually go into exploit mode.
And the human brain seems to be kind of like that, which starts out with this enormous scope of potential neural connections that you could have. And then as you get older, the ones that you use a lot get to be myelinated, they're more efficient, and then you lose a lot of other potential.
And again, I don't think it's an advantage of one of versus the other. It's a trade-off. And you wouldn't want a three-year-old to be the head of your department or the president of your university. There's lots of reasons why, there's a reason why everyone always celebrates the-
Heather Berlin:
The executive control. Yes.
Christof Koch:
It has to do with the way we raise it and the way we live in society. If we need people that can focus for eight hours a day just on this one thing, then we need to train kids early on. I've seen the difference.
So my grandson, Ulysses, he first went to kindergarten in Singapore where it's all about sitting down, focusing, and ultimately trying to take tests. Well he's now in Norway where it's much more explore this buzzing confusion that is live. And I think it just maximizes for different goals, to your point.
Alison Gopnik:
But I think to get back to Heather's point about adults, I don't think adults ever can get themselves back to the state as open indeed as a three-year-old. As long as we've been human, adults have done things that give them a kind of break from the responsibilities of executive function. So staying up all night, having a retreat, having a religious ritual, having a time and a place where you say, "Right now I'm not going to be worried about those everyday things that I have to do." Just for-
Heather Berlin:
It's still letting go. Or even just I think sometimes hanging out, spending time with children and seeing the world through their eyes. I know when I'm with my children, it just forces me to be so present and immediate, and you can almost see the world through them and get back a little bit into that childlike state. I think the key is maybe turning the knob up or down.
Alison Gopnik:
Well, I think it's interesting because when you see what are the sort of things that adults do that seem to have that effect, there are things that put you in a functional state that's more like a child. So traveling for example, is an example that I've given. When you're in a new place, you're sort of forced into the childhood state.
And this speaks to the perception of point because one thing that we've looked at in our work, this also gets back to the point about how are they doing these causal inferences, is the thought that there's something like a kind of Bayesian inference process that's going on. And we've shown that even very young children are doing something like Bayesian inference.
So Bayesian inference is that if you have a lot of evidence for something, if you have a really good reason to believe that something is true, it should take a lot to get you to budge you from that belief. If you've done something and you get lots and lots of reason to believe that this is true, then you should hang on to that. You should have, that's what Bayesians call your prior. You should pay attention to your prior.
And a lot of what we do is grownups is saying, "I've learned a lot. I know how the world works. Now I'm going to take everything that I know already and I'm going to put it to use to try and solve this problem. That's it." But if you're a child and even independently of all the special break characteristics of children, if you don't know as much, then almost automatically you're going to be more open to learning. That just kind of makes sense.
So doing something like going to a new place where you don't know exactly how everything works. Or an example that I like is when you look at a lot of artists who have late styles, a lot of times what artists will do consciously or not is kind of disrupt the thing that they've been skilled at. So Matisse, who's a great painter, says, "No, I'm going to do cutouts," something that he's never done before, that he doesn't actually have any skill about.
Christof Koch:
He purposefully try to put their brain back into the state where they're forced to learn.
Alison Gopnik:
Yeah, I think that's the idea. "I've become so skilled at painting that I can't get to new places in my painting. Let me try something that I've never done before. Let me try something that's going to be awkward to begin with." And I think those are all examples of the kinds of things that grownups can do that put them back.
But I agree with you Heather. I mean, one of the things that I think makes being a parent, being a caregiver so profound is that on the one hand, it's like the most responsible adult thing that we ever do, taking care of other people. But on the other hand, it means that you can be in a state at least vicariously of seeing what the world looks like from the eyes of a child.
And I think you're right. My own personal view is that I do my meditation by taking care of my grandchildren. And I'll schedule in, "Okay, I want three hours with my six-month-old grandniece once a week because that's when I get out of being in my own head." And I'm in the world in which garbage trucks are the most awesome thing that you can imagine.
Heather Berlin:
Yeah, it's like you enter their mindset. But I think it's the concept of novelty. When you're young, everything is new and everything is exciting. And then there is this sort of cynicism as you age of, "I've been there, done that." But if you can keep the novelty, and then what you're saying about changing skill sets is that creativity. It's dopamine really. It's like keep the dopamine. So if you paint the same way every day, day, after day, after day, there's nothing stimulating about that anymore. And I think that's what keeps people young is the curiosity, the novelty, the creativity. And that's very childlike. So I think that's as a tip to adults is to do something different, do something novel, walk a different route to work.
Alison Gopnik:
Which in a way is a way of making yourself into a child again, right? Because you're purposely... I mean, it's like evolution is handicapping the children, right? Evolution has designed it so that the children aren't terribly capable and have to learn everything.
And of course that's not true for all species. So if you look at chicks for example, there's lots of animals that mature really, really quickly. And there's a beautiful study by a biologist named Emily Snell-Rood who even with insects, if you compare butterflies that learn how to decide, which these are cabbage white butterflies. So they have to decide which kind of vegetables in my garden are you going to destroy, right? And some of them it turns out just have reflexes. They see something that's green and then they munch on it.
But there's others that actually will float around from leaf to leaf and sample them and decide, "Okay, this is the one that has the best outcome." And then they'll go and eat that leaf. Now all of these butterflies are living in this very short time, but the ones who are learning live longer and have fewer eggs.
Heather Berlin:
That's why I think it's a link to longevity in some ways. The brain can atrophy just like any other organ, and there's a stimulating factor to it of learning new things, the novelty. And it is getting back to a youthful type mindset.
But speaking of this concept of perception box, isn't childhood a time when our perception boxes are forming? And do we end up then getting, once it's formed, stuck inside a particular perception box? Or is there still opportunities to change?
Alison Gopnik:
Well, one thing that we found consistently is most of the time if you give younger kids a task and older kids and adults a task, the grownups will do better because they're better at executive function.
But we found that there's a very characteristic kind of task where children actually do better. And that's if the solution is unexpected, or novel, or not the obvious solution. And that gets back to this Bayesian point about it's not your prior. Say we give children one of our blicket problems, and the solution's not an obvious one. It would be weird for a machine to work this way. And then we show a bunch of data that says, yeah, the machine's working in this weird way both to adults and children.
Adults just stick to the thing that they thought when they came into the experiment and children will change their minds. And interestingly, what we found is that for a physical thing like the boxes, then four year olds are most flexible. And then when you hit school age around six or seven, you become a bit less flexible. And then in adolescence, you really start looking like an adult.
But if we give the kids a social problem, a problem about why did someone do something, why was he not willing to go on the trampoline in the schoolyard? Then what you see is the four-year olds are the most flexible. They're the best at thinking with lots of different reasons why that could be. They get less flexible in school age. But then the adolescents, the teenagers are the most flexible of all. So in a social context, the teenagers are most likely to think of something that's new or unexpected.
Christof Koch:
So how would that be explained by Bayesian priors? Because you would expect those priors over time just to become progressively-
Alison Gopnik:
Exactly.
Christof Koch:
In the final form.
Alison Gopnik:
So that's why I think part of it is just what you know. So as you know more, you see less. But I think part of it is actually what your brain is doing. And there's some evidence that in adolescence, the parts of your brain that are involved in social cognition and understanding are sort of re-energized, reorganizing, they're becoming more plastic again. And that kind of fits your intuition, that it's this adolescents, the teenagers who are the cutting edge of social innovation, and social creativity, and social change. I think the three and four-year-olds a lot of the time and they're thinking about social things, but a lot of time they're thinking about how does this world around me work?
Christof Koch:
I remember having hung out with magician at the Magic Castle in LA. Many magician disliked the performance of young children. The young child is sort of likely to point out, "What's he doing with his hand behind his back?"
Alison Gopnik:
Yeah, I've always loved that. And I've had the same reaction from magicians. When my book came out, I had a lovely letter from a store detective. And he said, "Look, what I do is I stand. I'm fully visible. I'm standing up on the balcony looking down to try and see if anyone's pick-pocketing." And he said, "And none of the grownups see me, but the children, I'll have the children waving up, making contact." Because they are aware. They're open to the possibility that there's someone standing up high. And I think it's the same point as the magicians.
Heather Berlin:
They're attending to these different things. And you've written about that parenting as we know it, is kind of like a new concept, the way that we parent. Can you explain some of that? Are there these preconceived notions in Western society about how we parent or raise children and are they incorrect?
Alison Gopnik:
So one of the things that I've been working on recently is caregiving. So this evolutionary trick of having a childhood where you can explore, that depends on having a grownup who's actually keeping you alive and taking care of you in that period. And it's something that's very characteristic and very deep about us humans that we care so much. We care for children, we care for elders, we care for the ill. And yet it's something that psychology kind of has, and not to mention politics and economics never paid much attention to. What's the special thing that you do when you care for someone, or particularly when you took care of children?
Christof Koch:
This is above and beyond the role of parents. You mean grandparents or-
Alison Gopnik:
Caregivers in general. And we know that one of the things that's really distinctive about humans is that we have a much wider range of people taking care of children than say even chimpanzees do.
So for chimps, it's mostly the biological mother who's doing most of the caregiving. But as long as humans have been around, we've had what the anthropologist Sarah Hrdy calls, had allomothers. We've had a whole, this is the old slogan about it takes the village. And we have my favorite adaptation, which is we actually have postmenopausal grandmothers, which is very unusual and sort of evolutionarily paradoxical, why am I here? I haven't been fertile for 20 years.
Christof Koch:
Why are you sticking around-
Alison Gopnik:
I should be gone. And there's a lot of evidence that it's actually having that wide range of caregivers that enables the children to learn as much as they do. And it's not just that they're being taken care of, but also that those elders are passing on all the information from their past experience. So that very distinctive cultural characteristic of human intelligence seems to come from those grandmothers. The grandfathers aren't quite as paradoxical as the grandmothers.
So you might think, "All right, I have to do this thing. I'm taking care of this child." If you've got that 35-year-old exploit mindset where you say, "Okay, well what do I do when I go to work? What do I do when I go to school? How do I accomplish something?" You might think about that caregiving as, "OKay, here's a set of goals that I want to accomplish. I want this child to come out of particular way and now I'm going to find the skills I need to accomplish those goals." Because that's mostly what we do when we're adults.
But if you think about it a bit, caregiving for anyone is like that. It's not about, "Well, I'm caring for someone because I want them to have certain kinds of properties, come out a particular way." An example that I like to give is we don't wive our husbands. It's not like we sort of say, "Well yeah, I think I'm doing a pretty good job. My husband is definitely showing better skills than he was when I married him. And he's definitely getting better." In fact, if anything, it's kind of the opposite. It's when you say, "Oh look, he needs me even more than he did when we got married." That's when love and care really-
Christof Koch:
So is it about compassion?
Alison Gopnik:
Exactly. So I think if you actually get more descriptions of what the intelligence of care is often in religious contexts than you do in economics, for example. So in economics and politics, you think I do something for you. You do something for me. But caring for someone isn't like that. And being with someone who needs us, it's one of the things that comes out of the happiness literature is that-
Heather Berlin:
It gives you purpose. Exactly. And that's why I think a lot of the parents are, "Oh, what do I do when my kids go, what is my purpose?" It's such a greater purpose for some people. But also, I mean, evolutionarily speaking, first of all, babies evolved to be really cute so we'd want to take care of them. I mean, they have all these features that make us, big eyes and all of that. But those who were more caring were more likely to have their children survive. And so there is some sort of evolutionary aspect to that, that is innate within us.
Alison Gopnik:
And I think there's a good argument, again, Sarah Hrdy has made this argument that a lot of our very distinctive human capacities for things like cooperation and our ability to have a really complicated social network. Again, the typical way of thinking about that is, "Oh, it's like a contract. I do this for you and you do this for me." But that's not what it's like. It's about I'm in a community or a family and I care about you, so I'm going to help you to do what you want, not because I think you're going to reciprocate sometimes. But a lot of times it's just caring to us. That seems to be very-
Heather Berlin:
It's also paving the way so allow the children to become who they're meant to be. They're allowing them to develop in-
Christof Koch:
And it even extends beyond our species. People care for their companion animals. That sort of seems a very sweet and innocent love. It's not driven by any profit. My dog or my cat that's 15 years old where if they inject every second day because of kidney issues, she's not going to give me anything except just-
Alison Gopnik:
The satisfaction of caring,
Christof Koch:
The satisfaction of caring.
Heather Berlin:
I mean, you do get some things. So my kids get love back. They're very, I cook and they're like, "I wanted this kind of pasta, not that kind of pasta." Like, "Oh okay, sorry." They can be very demanding. However, there are those moments of pure love and affection in return. Not that you're doing it for that, but it is a nice-
Alison Gopnik:
And I think in terms of our evolutionary history, this is something that, this is a point that people have made. For most times and places, children have had much more opportunity to explore and much less of the kind of contemporary investment parenting, middle class, American attitude towards being a parent is really unusual both culturally and historically.
And for most of history, what we've done is both provide this context of safety, and nurturance, and capacity to not worry about what's going to happen to you in the next second. And then a capacity to go out very broadly and explore, and for whole groups of children to go out very broadly and explore at a much younger age than we probably would than I think people-
Christof Koch:
But that doesn't happen today anymore.
Alison Gopnik:
And it's increasingly not happening. And I think it's not good for children or for the culture or the society at large.
Heather Berlin:
Children should have more time to free play and have unstructured time, and develop in the way as the scientists that they are-
Christof Koch:
Unsupervised. Is that what you mean, unsupervised? But that's very difficult to conceive of today. "Oh my God, my kids unsupervised since one hour. What are they doing?"
Alison Gopnik:
Well, there's a marvelous result that's one of my favorite results in psychology. So the oldest result in all of psychology going back to good old J.B. Watson and behaviorism is put the rat in a maze, and it goes down one arm and nothing happens. And then it goes down the other arm and it gets shocked, and it will never go down the arm where the shock was. That's reinforcement learning. It's the basis of modern AI. It's the basis of psychology.
But of course, if you think about it, in some ways that's a really smart thing to do. But if you think from this exploit-explore contrast, it's not such a smart thing to do. Because if you never go down that arm of the maze, you're never going to find out that maybe sometimes there's cheese at that end. Maybe the shock only comes once every 50 trials.
And in fact, that's a model for anxiety disorders. What happens in anxiety disorders is you avoid doing the thing that will have the negative outcome, and then you never learn that actually you're more confident than you thought and the world is less scary than you thought.
All right, here's the beautiful result. That is true for adult rats. So now what you do is you have the juvenile rat and you put the juvenile rat in the maze, and the juvenile rat would prefer to go down the arm where there's the shock.
Heather Berlin:
This reminds me of a teenager.
Alison Gopnik:
Exactly, it's funny because it's like with rats, they mature pretty quickly so it's a little hard to tell what exactly is the-
Heather Berlin:
What age they are.
Alison Gopnik:
What age they are. But it's not the newborns, but it's somewhere in between there.
Heather Berlin:
So why?
Alison Gopnik:
Here's the catch. Yeah, okay. You might think why, right? Yeah. It seems so bizarre. They'll only do it if the mother is present. So if they can smell the mother, then that's a signal that says, "All right, find out, explore. Even if you get shocked, it's worth it to get the information."
Heather Berlin:
So that's if you would say, I mean they have a healthy attachment.
Alison Gopnik:
Exactly.
Heather Berlin:
With the mother, and they feel safe enough that they can explore a dangerous area. I mean getting into-
Christof Koch:
So what implication, if any, does it have for modern childhood?
Alison Gopnik:
So the thought is that what you need in childhood is not to have a mother who's saying, "Don't go there. There might be a shock." What you need is a mother who's just there. And we started doing some work showing that children actually think this, that here's a background, here's a context where you're going to be safe, bad things are not going to happen to you. And that's just the fact that here's a mom, or a caregiver, a grandmother, a father, or an uncle-
Heather Berlin:
It's like a safety, a source of safety that allows you to have this exploratory behavior,
Alison Gopnik:
I think there's this beautiful sort of complementarity between this capacity we have for care, this capacity we have to say, "Look, you can do something. I'm going to make sure that it's all right in the long run." And then this capacity we have as children for exploration. It's that capacity that we have as grownups for care, which is not I'm going to shape you, I'm going to figure out what you're going to do. I'm going to make you grow up in a particular way. That's the thing that really is enabling children to explore. And that's the thing that's ultimately enabling human progress.
Christof Koch:
So today, we are confronted by this pandemic of the rise, particularly in the young of generalized anxiety. Right? Do you think that relates maybe partly to this new, more protective, "Oh my God, I always have to watch my kids every minute," style of parenting?
Alison Gopnik:
I think it's very hard to actually do the empirical work. We know that various kinds of psychopathology go in these, it's epidemiology. They go in these cycles where they go up and they go down, and no one ever can figure out exactly why. But it certainly seems plausible, theoretically, and other people have argued for this, that if you don't have a chance to explore, you kind of would predict from what we know about the mind and the brain, that anxiety would be a consequence of that.
And I think it's kind of interesting because it's sort of counterintuitive. You might think oh well, if you want to keep your kids from being anxious, you should just protect them from bad things. But it turns out that actually letting your child take risks, letting your child explore, letting your child see, "Okay, here's this terrible thing that happened, but now I've figured out how to cope with it. Here I am."
Heather Berlin:
Also, it's helping them build resilience. It like this book, The Coddling of the American Mind, which is exactly saying that. It's like you have to allow kids to have some adversity, almost to inoculate them and to teach them how to overcome and be resilient. But it's the balance. You don't want to be overly permissive where it's dangerous, just there's no supervision. Kids are getting hurt and not learning. But then too much over control can lead to anxiety where kids just feel like the world is a very unsafe place.
So I think it's parents today are put in this position of, what is the right balance between safety and protection? And allowing for exploration, and growth, and some resilience. Not everybody gets a trophy. Sometimes you don't get a trophy, and that's okay. You have to learn how to work through those feelings. And that breeds, that creates healthier adults over time.
Alison Gopnik:
I mean, again, I think it's all about trade-offs, and it's tricky about how you actually manage this trade-off of a metaphor that I've liked to use is it's like being a gardener. If you're a gardener, what you do is not... You can't dictate how every plant is going to come out. And you wouldn't want that, because you want your garden to thrive even when the weather changes, even when things are different, when conditions are different.
But what you want to do is create a context, create a place where many, many different kinds of plants can thrive and they can thrive in different kinds of ways. And that's my picture of why caregiving, at least for young children should be about, it's that sense of possibility.
There's a technical term in AI that I like called empowerment. And what you do in empowerment, that sounds kind of touchy feely, but it's a very technical computer science form of reinforcement learning, is you want your agents to be able to control as much of the environment as they can in as many different ways. So what-
Christof Koch:
You need to expose your kids to all sorts of different environments and learn how to deal with them.
Alison Gopnik:
So I think this is sort of a psychological version of what happens with the immune system in the same way that it turns out that having physically your immune system facing potential viruses makes you deal with them better. I think the same thing's true psychologically.
Heather Berlin:
I want to get a little into AI, because you've talked a little bit about comparing how children learn to the way AI models learn. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Alison Gopnik:
Yeah. So that's what, I've been doing versions of this for 20 years, but especially in the last five or six years, because the new AI systems depends so heavily on learning. People in AI have gotten more and more interested in development.
But I think the summary is that even these really powerful AI systems that depend a lot on just getting lots and lots of information, having lots of computational power, can't do things that even very little children are very good at doing.
So if you look at our little blanket detector experiments, the AIs, the large language models are very good at summarizing, here's what everybody knows about the fact that a glass will break if you drop it. But in our experiments, we're showing children causal relationships that they've never seen before and no one has ever seen before, because we're making them up for purposes of our experiment.
So if you give the system something that no one's ever seen before, nobody's ever posted anything about it on the internet, nobody's ever talked about it in a YouTube video, they're not very good as you might imagine at figuring them out. And even the little children are very good at figuring out new things.
People in AI talk a lot about out-of-distribution, things that are not the things that you were trained on or being able to have... This is a phrase I really like is the non-stationary environment. The non-stationary environment means, what happens when things change? What happens when the world is different from the world that you were trained on?
And the amazing thing about these contemporary AI methods is they can get trained on enormous amounts of data. But what happens when now you are in a different universe, now a different world than the world that generated all that data in the first place? And kids seem to be really good at dealing with that.
Heather Berlin:
Okay. So at the end of every episode, we ask a perception box question that we all answer. So my question I have is, what's a memory that you keep returning to and why?
Alison Gopnik:
Well, I had a kind of nice event about this with a memory recently where my grandson is. I'm now experiencing having grandchildren going through adolescence, which is a whole other experience. And I suddenly had a memory of when I was 13, being in my room at the top of the house that we lived in Philadelphia and being a terrible insomniac, and being up at 2:00 AM and running down to the garden and just having this sense that everything was so intense, and so amazing, and so wonderful, and so scary all at the same time. I mean, it was like a kind of psychedelic experience, but it was just being 13 and awake at 2:00 AM, and walking out into a rather grubby little garden in a rather grubby part of West Philadelphia. Felt as if it had that kind of significance. And I could see with my grandson, oh yeah, that's what's going on here. I can see some of that.
Heather Berlin:
I love that. And Christof?
Christof Koch:
Well, at roughly the same age my father gave me for good scholastic performance, a telescope at the time in Morocco. Now I remember because my older brother and I, we computed where the position of the planet Uranus in the sky. And I pointed the telescope at it. And there this blue image drifted into view. It was just, in talking about awe, I had this feeling of awe, the feeling down the scalp in your spinal cord, because there's this incredible degree of order and regularity. That's why I'm a scientist.
Heather Berlin:
I love that. And I love sort of, I'm thinking about perception box. What Alison was talking about was how the same experience walking in the garden could be so different for you depending on different places you are in life, different brain states that you're in. Whereas in one time it's just a boring garden. And at another point in your life, it's the most exciting experience, just having to do with the lens with which we see it through.
So my memory, I must be, I'm going to say maybe six or seven years old. And I'm in my grandmother's kitchen, and it's a cold winter day, and she's serving me the Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup out of the can. She would just dump it in the pan, and heat it up, and give it to me.
And she just sat with me and I'm eating my Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. And I just had the most feeling of safety, and security, and warmth, and happiness. There was no place I'd rather be than in her kitchen eating that chicken noodle soup. I'm getting emotional. But that memory is something, it's just a place I go back to as a safe place.
So on that note, thank you for being here. It's been wonderful. If you'd like to learn more about your own perception box, spend some time this week answering the same perception box questions that we asked our guests, and check out other questions on the website unlikelycollaborators.com.
You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and watch the show or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This has been Science of Perception Box created by Unlikely Collaborators in partnership with Pod People. I'm Dr. Heather Berlin.
Christof Koch:
And I'm Dr. Christof Koch. Thank you very much.
How can parents embrace science in order to give their children the best possible environment to thrive in? Cognitive development expert Dr. Alison Gopnik joins us to discuss how navigating challenges fosters healthier adults, likening caregiving to being a gardener creating an environment where various ”plants” can thrive in different conditions. Exposing children to diverse environments helps them develop better coping mechanisms, akin to how the immune system strengthens against viruses.
Dr. Gopnik is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, where she has taught since 1988. She is a world leader in cognitive science, particularly the study of children’s learning and development. She is the author of over 100 journal articles and several books including the best-selling and critically acclaimed popular books The Scientist in the Crib, The Philosophical Baby, and The Gardener and the Carpenter. She is a fellow of the Cognitive Science Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
We long for love. We die for love. We kill for love. But why do we love? Cohosts Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christoph Koch ask this question to Helen Fisher, PhD. who dedicated her career to researching romantic love. In this episode of Science of Perception Box, we explore how the act of being in love or out of love changes how we view ourselves and the world around us.
Dr. Fisher was a biological anthropologist, Senior Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute, and Chief Science Advisor to Match.com. She used brain scanning (fMRI) to study the neural systems associated with the sex drive, romantic love, attachment, rejection, love addiction, long-term partnership happiness, and the biological foundations of human personality. She conducted extensive research on the evolution, biology, and psychology of human sexuality, monogamy, adultery, and divorce.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.
What happens when an irredeemable person receives love, gratitude, and respect? After decades of drug and alcohol abuse, chef and television personality Andrew Zimmern learned firsthand.
As a teenager, Andrew Zimmern experienced deep pain when his mother became permanently disabled, and his father enforced a rule to avoid discussing feelings. Without an outlet, that pain grew into resentment and substance abuse. By 14, Zimmern was drinking daily, and his addiction followed him into adulthood, ultimately costing him his career, relationships, and home.
In January 1992, after hitting rock bottom, Zimmern attempted to take his own life. When he woke up, something shifted. For the first time, he asked for help. His friends intervened, sending him to rehab, where he began confronting his emotions and embracing a mindset of learning and giving.
Zimmern rebuilt his life, becoming a celebrated chef, author, and TV personality. Today, he credits that one vulnerable moment with saving his life and inspiring him to live with purpose and gratitude.
About Andrew Zimmern:
Andrew Zimmern is a chef, food writer, and television personality best known for hosting Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel. A four-time James Beard Award winner, Zimmern has dedicated his career to exploring global cuisines and advocating for culinary diversity. Beyond television, he is a passionate philanthropist, focusing on hunger relief, food sustainability, and social justice. He founded the Andrew Zimmern Project to support food security initiatives and works with organizations like Second Harvest and Services for the Underserved. Through his work, Zimmern strives to create a more equitable food system and inspire cultural appreciation through cuisine.
The one phrase that changed Diana Nyad’s life, and set her on course to become the first person ever to conquer the 110 mile, 53 hour swim from Florida to Cuba.
At 64, Diana Nyad swam 110 miles from Cuba to Florida, facing jellyfish, exhaustion, and tough ocean currents for over 53 hours. But this feat was more than just physical - it was the result of a lifetime of mental endurance.
As a young swimmer, she faced sexual abuse from her coach, which derailed her Olympic dreams and left deep emotional scars. Instead of letting those experiences hold her back, she found a way to channel that pain into something powerful. She talks about developing a "steel trap mind," using her struggles as motivation to pursue her goals.
Diana's journey goes beyond breaking records. It’s a powerful reminder of the human spirit's ability to persevere and heal, no matter the odds. Her swim from Cuba to Florida, completed on her fifth attempt, showcases her incredible willpower and serves as an inspiration to people everywhere.
About Diana Nyad: Diana Nyad is an endurance swimmer, author, and motivational speaker best known for her 2013 record-breaking swim from Cuba to Florida at age 64. Completing the 110-mile journey without a shark cage, she demonstrated unparalleled resilience and determination. Nyad is also a bestselling author, journalist, and co-founder of EverWalk, a fitness initiative promoting community through walking. Her story of perseverance, chronicled in her memoir Find a Way, continues to inspire audiences worldwide.
“I saw that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, and when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer.”
Author and public speaker Byron Katie shares how she transformed her life after discovering ‘The Work’, a method for identifying the thoughts that cause pain and suffering. By asking herself four simple yet profound questions, she found a way to recover from her agoraphobia, reunite with her family, and begin teaching others how to heal.
Katie’s strategy for ending suffering lies in asking yourself four questions about the thoughts you’re having: Is it true? Can you absolutely know it’s true? How do you react when you believe it? Who are you without the thought?
By asking yourself these questions, Katie explains how you can begin to escape the mentalities that hold you back. Her method shows us that peace doesn’t come from changing the world—it comes from changing how we see it.
About Byron Katie: Byron Katie is an author and teacher who helps people find peace by questioning their stressful thoughts. In 1986, after years of depression, she experienced a life-changing realization that led her to create The Work, a simple process of self-inquiry. Her books, like Loving What Is and A Thousand Names for Joy, have touched millions. Through workshops and talks, Katie shares a path to clarity and freedom, helping people live with more acceptance and ease.
Our cultural lenses can expand our Perception Box or contract it, keeping us closed off to new opportunities. So how do we become aware of the personal influences that shape our perceptions? In this episode of Science of Perception Box, cohosts Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christoph Koch discuss the impact of cultural differences on identity and mindsets with guest Dr. Daphna Oyserman. Dr. Oyserman shares her insights on how small changes in context can significantly affect our mindset and choices, impacting our health and academic performance.
Dr. Daphna Oyserman is a Dean’s Professor of Psychology and Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Southern California. Dr. Oyserman received a PhD in psychology and social work from the University of Michigan and served on the faculty of The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, before returning to the University of Michigan where she last held appointments as the Edwin J. Thomas Collegiate Professor of Social Work, Professor of Psychology, and Research Professor in the Institute for Social Research.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.
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Humans have a symbiotic relationship with plants. Plants coevolved to suit our desires for nourishment, beauty, and altering consciousness. Journalist Michael Pollan has investigated the human connection to plants. This week on Science of Perception Box, Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch ask Pollan about modern trends like ultra-processed foods, industrialized agriculture, and consciousness-altering drugs from plants including caffeine, cannabis, and psychedelics.
For more than 30 years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. Pollan is the author of eight books, six of which have been New York Times bestsellers. In 2003, Pollan was appointed the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism. In 2020, along with Dacher Keltner and others, he cofounded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.
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Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square, overcame a challenging upbringing marked by social isolation and family tragedy, channeling those experiences into a life defined by action, innovation, and iconoclasm. Though he’s undeniably earned his reputation as a business trailblazer, McKelvey remains uncomfortable with any attempts to mythologize his journey.
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As a child, Bob Stiller felt unmoored. His mother’s death was a loss that fueled anger, insecurity and, as a teenager, lots of partying. He founded rolling paper company E-Z Wider in 1971 and, a decade later, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.
Sophia Amoruso (aka Nasty Gal) started a tiny online vintage clothing store that quickly turned into a $350 million business. Fame soon followed, but so did all of her insecurities.
Anxiety can make us feel like we’re trapped in our brain. So how do we open the door and gain freedom? This week in the inaugural episode of Science of Perception Box podcast, Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch invite Dr. Judson Brewer to delve into the roots of anxiety, its impact on our perception, and how curiosity can be the key to lasting change.
Dr. Judson Brewer studies the neural mechanisms of mindfulness. He is the Director of Research and Innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center, where he’s also an Associate Professor at the School of Medicine. Dr. Brewer is a leading expert in the science of self-mastery and breaking habits. His books include Unwinding Anxiety, The Craving Mind, and The Hunger Habit.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.
Join renowned scientists Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch on the Science of Perception Box, where they delve into the Perception Box—a groundbreaking concept developed by Elizabeth R. Koch, that reveals how our beliefs, biases, and neural wiring shape our reality and define how we experience the world.
Through captivating conversations with expert guests like psychiatrist Dr. Judson Brewer, anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, and journalist Michael Pollan, the show explores how the Perception Box expands in states of awe, curiosity, and love, and contracts during fear, anxiety, or anger.
From mindfulness and romantic relationships to psychedelics and human connection, each episode uncovers transformative insights into unlocking greater awareness, fostering curiosity, and reshaping how we perceive the world.
New episodes drop every Thursday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow the journey and redefine your reality.
Don’t call yourself “a writer,” just write. Ryan Holiday on how the labels you give yourself can hold you back.
Who would you be without all the labels and identities you’ve collected over the course of your life?
Ego, titles, and societal expectations often shape who we think we are—or who we think we should be. Author, and for simplicity's sake, bookstore owner, Ryan Holiday explains the simple question “What do you do?” can turn into a trap, making us cling to roles that don’t really define us. But what happens when you let go of these labels? What if, instead of focusing on the identity of being a writer, you focused on the act of writing itself?
As Holiday got older, he learned that being busy “doing the verb” is far more valuable than obsessing over the noun. It’s easy to get caught up in trying to fit into the “right” categories and titles, but that often means copying, comparing, and losing sight of what really matters.
About Ryan Holiday: Ryan Holiday is a bestselling author, marketer, and one of today’s leading voices in modern Stoicism. He’s known for taking ancient wisdom and making it relatable and practical for everyday life. Before becoming an author, he led marketing at American Apparel. Now, he writes about strategy, self-discipline, and leadership, weaving history into real-world advice.
When a group of first responders were asked to confront the Perception Box question, "What need inside of yourself have you been neglecting?", their raw and honest responses were deeply moving and sparked profound reflection.
This series (a collaboration with Jubilee Media) is designed for communities with shared experiences to spark deeper self-understanding and connection by sharing their answers to specially selected Perception Box questions. This highlights the power of vulnerability and the importance of creating safe spaces for honest conversations.
“I feel like I had to lose my sight to fully gain my vision.” John Furniss on how becoming blind led him to drug abuse, rehab, woodworking, and finally, to a fulfilling life.
John Furniss, also known as the Blind Woodsman, opens up about his journey from a difficult past to finding peace and purpose. After losing his sight as a teenager, John struggled for years to accept his new reality, battling inner turmoil and substance abuse along the way. It wasn't until he discovered woodworking through a vocational rehab program that he found a way to channel his creativity and start healing.
Woodworking became more than just a skill for John; it allowed him to bring the designs he imagined in his mind to life. This craft also led him to meet his wife, Annie, who has been a constant source of love and support. Through his work and his relationship, John found a sense of belonging and a new way of seeing the world. He reflects on how losing his sight actually helped him gain a clearer vision of who he is and what he’s meant to do, ultimately finding peace in embracing his true self.
About John Furniss:
John Furniss, known professionally as The Blind Woodsman, is a skilled woodworker, author, and disability advocate recognized for his meticulous hand-turned creations. After losing his sight at 16, John faced significant challenges adapting to life with total blindness. In his 20s, he found his passion for woodworking through a class designed for the blind, which led to the development of his unique craft.
Today, John’s work has been featured on platforms such as Good Morning America and The Kelly Clarkson Show. He and his wife, Anni, who is also an artist, use their social media platforms to share their work and raise awareness about disability and mental health. John’s expertise in woodworking and his contributions to the art community have established him as a respected figure in his field.
Kaelynn Partlow shares her story about life with autism, ADHD, and dyslexia, and how finding the right diagnosis helped her embrace her neurodivergent identity.
Kaelynn Partlow, an author, autism advocate, and registered behavior technician, shares her own experiences living with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and more. She talks about how these diagnoses shifted her self-perception from feeling "stupid" to understanding her unique challenges and strengths.
Kaelynn opens up about the misunderstandings neurodivergent people face and the difficulty of connecting in a world that often doesn't accommodate different ways of thinking. She also shares her fears—like wondering if her social difficulties will ever improve—and how she copes with loneliness, especially when not focused on work.
Through it all, Kaelynn emphasizes the value of recognizing your own strengths, even when it’s hard. By taking on challenges and thriving under pressure, she found new opportunities, from public speaking to creative writing. Her story shows that growth often comes from facing fears and redefining success on your own terms.
About Kaelynn Partlow:
In 2015, Kaelynn Partlow joined Project Hope Foundation as a Registered Behavior Technician. She is now a Lead Technician, providing services to middle and high-school-aged clients and contributing to staff training development.
In 2021, Kaelynn was featured on the Netflix series Love On The Spectrum. She has also been a guest on numerous national podcasts and has published several articles, offering insights from an autistic perspective.
With a large following on various social media platforms, Kaelynn uses her reach for autism advocacy, connecting with millions globally. In addition to her online work and role at Project Hope, she is an international public speaker, passionate about sharing tangible strategies for best practices when interacting with individuals on the autism spectrum
Your brain is wired to repeat the familiar. Change this wiring, and it will change your life.
Nicole Vignola, a neuroscientist and organizational psychologist, explains how deeply rooted beliefs can limit our potential and keep us trapped in patterns of thought. These perceptions, often shaped by our upbringing and environment, aren’t necessarily our own—but they can be changed.
Nicole shares how the brain’s natural biases, like negativity bias and confirmation bias, reinforce these limiting beliefs. However, with the right approach, it’s possible to reshape our mental patterns. By practicing metacognition—observing and naming our thoughts—we can start to rewire our perception and create new, empowering narratives.
Our brains are capable of change at any age. By focusing on small wins and challenging automatic thoughts, we can break free from old beliefs and begin using a mindset that better serves ourselves and our futures.
About Nicole Vignola:
Nicole Vignola is a neuroscientist, author and corporate consultant. With a BSc in Neuroscience and an MSc in Organizational Psychology, Nicole works with companies and individuals worldwide, educating them on the science of human optimisation, health and longevity, and how to enable employees to perform better in their daily lives and in turn, bring peak performance to the workplace. Recent clients include Lloyds Bank, Makers Mark and Smeg Ltd.
Expanding your worldview starts with understanding your brain. Stanford neuroscientist David Eagleman explains.
David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at Stanford and host of the Inner Cosmos podcast, explores how our brains shape the reality we experience and why we often accept our perceptions as the only truth. From a young age, we develop our understanding of the world based on limited experiences and biases, which can lead us to form narrow views about what's true.
Eagleman explains that our genetics and life experiences wire our brains in unique ways, meaning that each of us sees the world a little differently. He introduces the idea of "perceptual genomics," which looks at how slight genetic differences influence our perception of reality. He also discusses how our brains naturally create in-groups and out-groups, a tendency rooted in evolution that affects how much empathy we feel for others.
To overcome these biases, Eagleman suggests that we start by recognizing our own prejudices, understanding the tactics of dehumanization, and connecting with others through shared interests. This approach helps us appreciate the diverse realities others experience, ultimately contributing to a more empathetic and understanding society.
About David Eagleman:
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford University and an internationally bestselling author. He is co-founder of two venture-backed companies, Neosensory and BrainCheck, and he also directs the Center for Science and Law, a national non-profit institute. He is best known for his work on sensory substitution, time perception, brain plasticity, synesthesia, and neurolaw.
Challenging the loneliness stigma can change your life. Here’s how to start.
From a young age, many of us are taught that being alone means something is wrong, leading to negative thought patterns that reinforce feelings of isolation. Kasley Killam, author of The Art and Science of Connection and an expert in social health, explains how these perceptions of loneliness can shape our experiences and influence our lives.
According to Killam, this stigma around loneliness can trigger a stress response in the body, affecting both mental and physical well being. However, by challenging these narratives and reminding ourselves of how much control we really have, it’s possible to redirect our mindsets. It also helps, she says, to understand the difference between individualistic and collectivist cultures, and how each one can influence the way we interpret and discuss our feelings with others.
For those who have struggled with loneliness or felt trapped in a cycle of negative thinking, this perspective can help us break free. By shifting our thought patterns, we can transform our relationships, enhance our sense of connection, and improve our overall well-being.
About Kasley Killam:
Kasley Killam is a social health expert, author, and advocate focused on strengthening connections and enhancing community well-being. With a background in behavioral science and public health from Harvard University, she is a leading voice on the impact of social relationships on mental and physical health.
As the founder of Social Health Labs, Killam collaborates with organizations to develop innovative solutions for combating loneliness and social isolation. Her work has been featured in major publications, and she is a sought-after speaker on the importance of social well-being in creating healthier, more resilient communities.
Ever wonder why your partner goes Tasmanian Devil in traffic jams while you just shrug? Or why you have such a hard time setting boundaries with parents when your sibling has no problem saying "hell no!" Everyone has something that triggers panic or turns their blood cold…and it all starts with the story you made up about yourself when you were too young to know the difference…your Perception Box Seed Story.
A group of LGBTQ+ individuals courageously answered the Perception Box question, "Who or what have you left behind on your journey to become who you are today?" Their honest and insightful responses were deeply moving.
This series (a collaboration with Jubilee Media) is designed for communities with shared experiences to spark deeper self-understanding and connection by sharing their answers to specially selected Perception Box questions. This highlights the power of vulnerability and the importance of creating safe spaces for honest conversations.
How has Kel Mitchell navigated self-doubt, isolation, and the desire to “hit the off button”? He says it’s all faith, community, and personal forgiveness.
After his debut on Nickelodeon, Kel Mitchell began a life-long career as an actor and comedian. He got married, started a family, and basked in professional success. However, behind the scenes, he faced intense personal hardships that pushed him to the brink, testing his resilience and strength in ways he never imagined.
Kel guides us through the lowest points of his life, showing us how faith in himself and his religion helped him rebuild and achieve a fulfilling existence. He reminds us that blessings can often be hidden in hardships and that mistakes play a crucial role in shaping who we are.
By expressing his pain and opening up to others about the things he was struggling with, he was able to find unity, community, and support from those who had experienced similar drawbacks. Mitchell stresses the importance of understanding others, and how deep relationships can change – and even save – lives.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
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Kel Mitchell is a two-time Emmy Award-nominated actor, producer, comedian, and youth pastor hailing from Chicago, Illinois.
Mitchell executive produced and appeared in the new iteration of the beloved Nickelodeon series All That, bringing him full circle to the original award-winning show that was his big break. All That was Nickelodeon's longest-running live-action series, with 171 episodes across ten seasons from 1994 to 2005. The franchise paved the way for a number of successful spin-offs, including Kenan & Kel, The Amanda Show, The Nick Cannon Show, and the feature-length film Good Burger, all of which cemented Mitchell's impact on pop culture.
A two-part visualization to help you gain distance from any overpowering emotion so you can respond to the true need of the moment with something closer to calm.
Harvard physician Aditi Nerukar explains how to rewire your brain’s stress response to live a more resilient life.
If you’ve ever heard the phrase “pressure makes diamonds,” this video is for you.
Harvard physician Aditi Nerurkar was working 80 hours a week, and, despite what she was telling herself about resilience, the stress was taking a major toll. She explains how there are two different kinds of stress, aptly named “adaptive” and “maladaptive.” But how can you tell the difference between the two?
Dr. Nerukar explains that healthy, adaptive stress moves your life forward, while unhealthy, maladaptive stress wears you down and diminishes your productivity. When experiencing maladaptive stress, you may find yourself plummeting closer to burnout, or a complete shutdown. To combat these consequences, Dr. Neurkar offers two easily achievable methods for resetting your brain in high-stress situations.
Whether you're navigating a demanding job, balancing multiple life roles, or simply looking to improve your stress management, this information can help you thrive without compromising your well-being. Remember to slow down, take deep breaths, and regularly check in with yourself to ensure your stress remains healthy and manageable!
Neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor explains the 4 key ”characters” of the brain, and how understanding each can expand your perception of yourself, and the world, forever.
At age 37, neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a stroke that would take her eight years to fully recover from. This is how it changed her understanding of the brain.
In this interview, Dr. Jill draws a map of the human brain, explaining how it is comprised of four distinct modules, each serving a unique role in function and personality. This combination of cognitive and emotional components gives rise to the multidimensional characters within each of us.
Are you looking to be more rational, more creative, more forgiving, or perhaps less rigid in your thinking? Dr. Jill suggests that by becoming aware of the four modules of our brains, we can consciously choose to engage specific parts. This awareness allows us to harness the true power of our brains and shape who we want to become, ultimately fostering less anxiety, more inner peace, and a vastly more purposeful life.
Carrie Berk reveals how she transformed her struggle with anxiety and internet fame by changing her perception and finding her true voice as a writer.
Carrie Berk, author, journalist, and social media influencer with nearly 4 million TikTok followers, shares her journey through anxiety, internet fame, and personal growth.
Amid the pandemic and sudden online fame, Carrie faced intense anxiety, receiving harmful threats from strangers and grappling with the pressures of social media. Sharing her most vulnerable moments, including her first heartbreak at sixteen, Carrie emphasizes the importance of authenticity. Through therapy and self-discovery, she learned that while she couldn’t switch off her anxiety, she could change her response to it.
Carrie’s story is a perfect example of the resilience it takes to be a young person in today’s social climate, and proves how powerful self-confidence and inner strength can be.
This group of people who have experienced homelessness were asked the Perception Box question, "In moments of deep solitude, what major concerns and questions about YOU tend to dominate your thoughts?" Their honest answers were deeply moving and insightful.
This series (a collaboration with Jubilee Media) is designed for communities with shared experiences to spark deeper self-understanding and connection by sharing their answers to specially selected Perception Box questions. This highlights the power of vulnerability and the importance of creating safe spaces for honest conversations.
In this episode, a group of formerly incarcerated individuals was asked the Perception Box question, "What are you most afraid is true about you?" Their candid responses were incredibly moving and thought-provoking.
This series (a collaboration with Jubilee Media) is designed for communities with shared experiences to spark deeper self-understanding and connection by sharing their answers to specially selected Perception Box questions. This highlights the power of vulnerability and the importance of creating safe spaces for honest conversations.
Jewel says denying the truth cost her years of her life. This is how she shifted her perception to see truth more clearly and regain her strength.
“My number one job was to be a happy, whole human — not a human full of holes.” Jewel Kilcher, singer-songwriter, and visual artist, opens up about her childhood, the start of her career, and what makes Jewel, Jewel.
After being discovered during a coffee shop gig in the 1990’s, folk singer Jewel began the life-long endeavor of being a performer. Jewel went on to gain worldwide recognition for her talent and creativity. But who is she at her core? What are her greatest fears, her deepest aspirations?
In this interview, Jewel shares the personal struggles and triumphs that have shaped her, the importance of truth on her life and well-being, and the lessons she's learned along the way. Through this conversation, Jewel offers an up-close look into her journey, revealing the experiences and hard-won insights that have shaped her as both an artist and a person.
Experience Jewel’s latest exhibit at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Portal: An Art Experience by Jewel ► https://crystalbridges.org/calendar/the-portal-an-art-experience-by-jewel/
About Jewel:
Jewel Kilcher, known mononymously as Jewel, embodies the quintessential story of resilience and artistic integrity. From her humble beginnings in the rugged landscapes of Alaska to her rise as a multi-platinum recording artist, Jewel's journey is a testament to the transformative power of art. Homeless at 18, she honed her craft performing in coffee shops, blending folk, pop, and country influences with her ethereal voice and introspective songwriting.
Her debut album, "Pieces of You," captured hearts worldwide, achieving remarkable commercial success while delivering profound, soul-stirring messages. Beyond music, Jewel's talents extend to poetry and acting, with her literary works and performances reflecting her deep empathy and authenticity.
Jewel's commitment to social causes, including mental health advocacy and her foundation, the Inspiring Children Foundation, underscores her dedication to making a positive impact. In a world often dominated by transient fame, Jewel stands out as a beacon of enduring creativity and compassionate leadership.
Alyssa and her ex-boyfriend Trey have successfully transitioned from lovers to best friends. But can she recreate that same dynamic with her most recent ex, Adal? Alyssa, Trey, and Adal dive deep into their pasts and their relationships with each other by answering a series of thought-provoking Perception Box questions. Watch their honest reflections, uncover their perspectives on love and friendship, and discover what the future holds for this unique trio.
What happens when men shed their armor and embrace their emotions? Men from diverse backgrounds share their stories of overcoming trauma, redefining masculinity, and finding strength in vulnerability. This is a must-watch for anyone seeking deeper connections and understanding.
Emma and Nick both swiped "yes" in person. Now that they have a chance to get to know each other and themselves more deeply by answering Perception Box questions, are they compatible?
Arielle & Ella met on a Nectar dating show. Was it meant to be, or are they destined to be just friends? They will find out when they get to know their true selves and each other by answering Perception Box questions.
Participants are invited to sit down to ask each other Perception Box questions to see if two strangers could sit down and get vulnerable with one another.
This powerful episode features a group of individuals with disabilities opening up about their deepest fears and struggles. Their experiences highlight the unique challenges they face, from concerns about independent living to mental health struggles and navigating social stigma, and ultimately how they can relate to one another.
Michael Oher gained widespread recognition through Michael Lewis's book "The Blind Side" and its film adaptation, which depicted his difficulties in early life and time playing college football. After attending the University of Mississippi, he played in the NFL for the Baltimore Ravens, Tennessee Titans, and Carolina Panthers, winning the SuperBowl with the Ravens in 2013.
Shaka Senghor spent 19 years in prison, 7 of them in solitary confinement. This is how he found true freedom.
Watch the full video here.
Watch what happens when this group of strangers bravely share their unspoken truths. Will these women find connection in the unexpected? Could sharing your secret be the key to unlocking a powerful sense of belonging?
Curious about tools for fostering deeper self-awareness? Check out the latest episode of Tea for Two by Nectar. Former high school sweethearts, Diane & Justin, use Perception Box questions to explore their individual needs and communication styles. Great insights for anyone in a relationship, whether personal or professional.
Hailey and Travis first met on the Nectar channel, now they are going on their first date and things get deep.
Do you ever feel like you have something to prove?
Scientific experts explain how each person's perception is skewed by various factors such as beliefs, biases, and narratives.
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A collection of interviews dedicated to sharing unique perspectives and challenging our preconceived notions.
Jim Lee, President, Publisher, and Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics tells us how his childhood obsession with Superman changed his life.
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Explore how overcoming the limiting beliefs that hold us back, can expand the possibilities of our perception, and open us up to new ways of seeing and being seen.
The Osbournes was MTV’s biggest show – and it almost cost Jack Osbourne his life. Here’s how his family’s reality TV fame stole his childhood, and how he’s been able to heal since.
Meet Jordan and Rana. These two undergrads have been in an exclusive situationship, but are ready to confront where their relationship is going and what might come next.
Tea for Two explores how daters show up in a relationship by first taking a look at their relationship with themselves. Through a series of Perception Box questions, Tea for Two questions, and challenges, these daters get to know each other and themselves on a whole new level. This allows them to dig deeper, uncover more meaningful connections, and figure out if they are ready to be in this relationship.
This is how rejection made executive producer and director Julie Plec an undeniable leader.
Creator of the popular series “The Vampire Diaries,” Julie Plec is proof imposter syndrome never goes away, no matter how big you make it. The writer and producer answered our questions about self-doubt, getting “blacklisted,” and how we can alter our perceptions to better appreciate our successes.
About Julie Plec:
Julie Plec is a creator, showrunner, executive producer and director, most notably responsible for the complete Vampire Diaries Universe (The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and Legacies), which spanned thirteen years and more than 300 episodes of television.
Plec is co-creator and co-showrunner of the upcoming series Vampire Academy, based on the popular book series, which recently wrapped production in Spain and is debuting September 15, 2022, on Peacock. She is also co-creator of the new series Dead Day, along with her Vampire Diaries partner Kevin Williamson, which was recently picked up to series at Peacock as well, and executive producer of Girls on the Bus, which was picked up straight to series at HBO Max.
Plec is creator and executive producer of Legacies, which recently aired its fourth and final season on the CW, along with serving as an executive producer of Roswell, New Mexico, which recently aired its fourth and final season on the CW as well. In addition, Plec served as executive producer of The Endgame, starring Morena Baccarin and Ryan Michelle Bathé, which recently aired on NBC.
She is currently under an overall deal at Universal Television, where she and Emily Cummins, president of her production company, My So-Called Company, are developing projects across all platforms for the studio. Plec and Cummins recently announced a new project at Peacock, Clifton, along with a slate of several other projects in development.
Along with directing multiple episodes of The Vampire Diaries, Legacies, and Roswell, New Mexico, for which she also directed the pilot, Plec directed an episode of the CW’s hit series Riverdale, and most recently directed an episode of her new series Vampire Academy.
Plec developed and executive produced Containment, which aired as a limited series on the CW in 2016.
She got her start as a television writer and co-executive producer for the series Kyle XY, which she produced for the show’s three-year run. Other television credits include Dawson’s Creek, on which she collaborated with creator/executive producer Kevin Williamson, and The Tomorrow People, on which she collaborated with fellow executive producers Greg Berlanti and Phil Klemmer.
In the early part of her career, Plec worked with both Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson during the run of their hit Scream franchise. She also co-produced Berlanti’s directorial debut film, The Broken Hearts Club.
Your emotions do not reflect an irrefutable truth. Psychologist Kristen Lindquist explains how important that is for connecting across cultures.
When it comes to obtaining an objective understanding of the world around us, emotions may not be as reliable as we think, explains Kristen Lindquist, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Lindquist explores the concept of "affective realism," a term that describes how our feelings shape our reality, both of which are influenced by cultural nuances. She unravels the connections between emotions, culture, and the brain, challenging the notion that our emotional experiences always mirror objective truths.
About Kristen Lindquist:
Kristen Lindquist, PhD. is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research seeks to understand the psychological and neural basis of emotions, moods, and feelings. Her on-going work uses tools from social cognition, physiology, neuroscience, and big data methods to examine how emotions emerge from the confluence of the body, brain, and culture.
Robert Waldinger is a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and Zen priest. He is Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, where he directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development. His TEDx talk on this subject has received nearly 44 million views, and is the 9th most watched TED talk of all time. He is the co-author of The Good Life with Dr. Marc Schulz.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Robert Waldinger about the secret to a happy life. Robert shares the recent findings of The Grant Study, which is the longest scientific study of happiness ever conducted. It’s been ongoing for more than 80 years now, and has had high profile participants like US President John F. Kennedy. Robert and Scott get into the details of how they continue to conduct research and how to make sense of both the new and old data. Sure enough, what the study has found consistent is the power of connection. They also touch on the topics of psychodynamic therapy, defense mechanisms, attachment, and psychological research.
Website: www.robertwaldinger.com
X: @robertwaldinger
The divisive gold/blue dress that almost broke the internet in 2015 is a relatable example of how a Perception Box works. How each of us having our Perception Box, own subjective reality, affects the way we experience the world.
Expert James Fadiman explains how psychedelics have the power to expand consciousness, enhance creativity, and deepen our connections to the world.
James Fadiman, a distinguished figure with over six decades in psychedelic research, examines the profound impact psychedelics have on consciousness, creativity, and connectivity.
Fadiman shares insights into how these substances shift perception, offering perspectives that challenge and expand our understanding of reality. He also delves into the scientific underpinnings of psychedelics, their therapeutic potential, and the societal benefits of fostering deeper empathy and open-mindedness. Highlighting the importance of integration post-experience, Fadiman sheds light on the transformative power of psychedelics to not only alter individual consciousness but also to enhance community bonds and personal relationships.
Through a focus on responsible use and the expansion of human awareness, Fadiman's expertise offers a compelling view into the capacity of psychedelics to redefine our interaction with the world and ourselves.
About James Fadiman:
Dr. James Fadiman is a leading scientific expert on the use of psychedelics for personal exploration, healing, and transformation. He has been researching, writing and lecturing on the topic for more than fifty years. His research focuses on exploring the potential of psychedelics to help individuals achieve a more meaningful, balanced and enlightened life. He has written numerous books on the topic, such as The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide and Your Symphony Of Selves, and is widely considered to be one of the most influential figures in the field.
There are three kinds of memory that all work together to shape your reality. Neuroscientist André Fenton explains.
Neuroscientist André Fenton discusses the intricate relationship between memory, perception, and reality, shedding light on the complexity of human cognition.
Fenton believes memories are not fixed but are continually modified by our experiences and mindsets.
This, in his mind, underscores the importance of humility and empathy in acknowledging the fallibility of our memories and the need to consider different perspectives in our quest for truth.
About André Fenton:
André Fenton, professor of neural science at New York University, investigates the molecular, neural, behavioral, and computational aspects of memory. He studies how brains store experiences as memories, how they learn to learn, and how knowing activates relevant information without activating what is irrelevant. His investigations and understanding integrates across levels of biological organization, his research uses genetic, molecular, electrophysiological, imaging, behavioral, engineering, and theoretical methods. This computational psychiatry research is helping to elucidate and understand mental dysfunction in diverse conditions like schizophrenia, autism, and depression. André founded Bio-Signal Group Corp., which commercialized an FDA-approved portable, wireless, and easy-to-use platform for recording EEGs in novel medical applications. André implemented a CPAP-Oxygen helmet treatment for COVID-19 in Nigeria and other LMICs and founded Med2.0 to use information technology for the patient-centric coordination of behavioral health services that is desperately needed to equitably deliver care for mental health. André hosts “The Data Set” a new web series on how data and analytics are being used to solve some of humanity’s biggest problems.
Nothing is real and everything is an illusion. Neuroscientist Heather Berlin explains why that’s not exactly a bad thing.
Neuroscientist Heather Berlin likens each person's perception to a unique box shaped by their own experiences. Perception, Berlin explains, arises from a blend of internal expectations and external sensory input, creating a subjective experience.
Berlin believes our mental state can also profoundly affect our perception; a pessimistic mindset might skew it negatively, for example. The brain filters information, relying on preexisting schemas that can lead to cognitive biases. She notes that these biases can be altered through changing inputs over time, which can expand our empathy.
Understanding perception's illusory nature empowers us to shape our experiences and find joy despite life's challenges.
About Heather Berlin:
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and associate clinical professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. She explores the neural basis of impulsive and compulsive psychiatric and neurological disorders with the aim of developing novel treatments. She is also interested in the brain basis of consciousness, dynamic unconscious processes, and creativity. Clinically, she specializes in lifespan (child, adolescent, and adult) treatment of anxiety, mood, and impulsive and compulsive disorders (e.g., OCD), blending her neural perspective with cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness, and humanistic approaches.
You know Steve-O. Now meet Steve Glover, as the professional stuntman talks to us about pain, insecurity, and never finding contentment.
In this deeply personal and revealing interview, Steve Glover, better known as Steve-O, the daredevil entertainer known for his jaw-dropping stunts and unflinching willingness to face pain, shares the untold story of his journey from a childhood craving for attention to becoming an icon of wild antics and extreme performances.
Opening up about his struggles with alcoholism, the relentless pursuit of fame, and his battles with feeling 'not good enough', Glover offers an introspective look into the complexities behind the laughter and the screams.
With raw honesty, he discusses the pivotal moments that shaped him, the drive to document his existence through stunts, and the liberating power of sharing the secrets he once vowed to take to his grave.
This interview is not just a glimpse into the life of a professional idiot; it's a candid exploration of human vulnerability, the cost of fame, and the ongoing quest for self-acceptance.
About Steve-O:
Steve-O (a.k.a. Stephen Glover) was willing to do whatever it took to become famous, even if it meant stapling his ball sack to his leg. After failing miserably at the University of Miami and couch-surfing with friends, he decided that in order to further his goal of becoming a stuntman he would enroll in Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. But it was his relentless attention whoring that ultimately led to working with Johnny Knoxville on a new stunt-based reality show called Jackass.
In 2000, MTV aired the first season and the rest, as they say, is history. Since then, he's had continued success, as a New York Times best-selling author with the release of his memoir, 'Professional Idiot', as well as establishing himself in the world of stand-up comedy. With fourteen years of sobriety under his belt, Steve-O shows no signs of slowing down.
Former SNL star @JayPharoah answers our most challenging questions about life, self-esteem, and changing his mind.
Jay Pharoah is known best for his impressions, but he’s got a lot more going on. The actor, comedian, and rapper sat down with us to talk about embracing triumphs, overcoming setbacks, forgiveness, and the way all of it shapes who you are.
About Jay Pharoah:
Jay Pharoah is an actor and stand-up comedian. With six seasons as a cast member of NBC's Saturday Night Live, Pharoah is best known for his wide array of uncanny celebrity impressions, including President Barack Obama, Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Stephen A. Smith, Kanye West and Chris Tucker, as well as his recurring character, school principal Daniel Frye.
Over 250 million records sold and more than 70 platinum hits later, @JasonDerulo sits down with us to talk about goals, insecurities, and why he still doesn’t feel like he’s “made it.”
Jason Derulo's career flashed before his eyes when he broke his neck in 2012. Despite fearing the worst, he used positive self-talk and daily routines to recover and create hit songs like “Marry Me” and “Talk Dirty.” Overcoming childhood insecurities, he emphasizes the power of self-improvement. Now a global superstar with 250 million singles sold, Derulo prioritizes family time since becoming a father in 2021.
Cindy Gallop answers our questions about sex, identity, and why we need to stop giving a damn.
Cindy Gallop, the founder and CEO of MakeLoveNotPorn, answered our questions about self-worth, the weight of other people’s expectations on women, and hope.
She shares her mission to normalize and destigmatize conversations about sex, including the negative consequences of using pornography as a substitute for sexual education.
Cindy hopes for a world where we’re all unburdened by societal judgments and true equality is achieved.
About Cindy Gallop:
Cindy Gallop is a graduate of Somerville College, Oxford, whose background is over 30 years in brand-building, marketing and advertising — she started up the US office of ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty in New York in 1998 and in 2003 was named Advertising Woman of the Year.
She is the founder and CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld, co-action software launched in beta at TED 2010 and subsequently written up and taught as a Harvard Business School case study, which enables brands to implement the business model of the future — Shared Values + Shared Action = Shared Profit (financial and social).
She is also the founder of MakeLoveNotPorn – ‘Pro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-knowing the difference’ — a social sextech platform designed to promote good sexual behavior and good sexual values, which she launched at TED 2009, and for which she has just raised $2 million to build out MLNP.tv as ‘the Social Sex Revolution’.Cindy recently partnered with AARP on their Disrupt Aging initiative to challenge and change ageism.
Cindy has also published ‘Make Love Not Porn: Technology’s Hardcore Impact on Human Behavior’ as one of TED’s line of TEDBooks.
You can follow her on Twitter @cindygallop.
He co-created one of TV’s funniest shows. He still felt like a failure in his 30s. This is comedian Neal Brennan’s story about conquering toxic self-talk.
We all tell lies to ourselves about ourselves, usually in the form of vicious inner criticism. Neal Brennan, seasoned comedian and one of the brilliant minds behind “Chapelle’s Show,” confronted his inner critic on video for our entertainment.
Despite being instrumental in one of the most successful comedy shows of all time, there was a time when Brennan didn’t think he had much to show for himself, especially not as a solo entertainer. The eventual demise of “Chappelle’s Show” led him down a dark path of self-doubt and, then, rediscovery.
Brennan worked 12-step programs, ventured into the world of psychedelics, and even tried magnetic brain manipulation to break out of his despair. Now, he has a new perspective on the value of going it alone. Turns out, it isn’t quite so bad.
About Neal Brennan:
Three-time Emmy nominated writer, director, producer, and standup comedian Neal Brennan has become a force in the comedy world. An across-the-board talent, Neal has found success in almost every creative vein in the comedy landscape. Hailed by The Hollywood Reporter as “Hollywood’s Comic Whisperer” and lauded by The New York Times as having a “hip-hop and Frontline aesthetic,” he has collaborated with top talent both in front of and behind the camera for three decades.
Neal’s most recent one-man show Neal Brennan: Unacceptable enjoyed a sold-out run in NYC in 2021 with The New York Times offering “Brennan starts off with a regular joke format before turning toward introspection as he exposes his doubts, neuroses and vulnerabilities. And he remains very funny as he does so.” Neal’s critically acclaimed first off-Broadway one-man show 3 Mics also enjoyed a sold-out NYC run in 2016 with musician John Legend serving as Executive Producer with Paste Magazine gushing “It will floor you in the best way possible.” In a break from traditional standup comedy, 3 Mics saw Brennan alternating between three separate microphones; one for traditional stand-up, one for one-liners, and one for short confessional monologues covering everything from managing his depression to his difficult relationship with his father. Both one-man shows were taped as stand-up specials and premiered on Netflix to much fanfare and critical acclaim.
Neal co-created Comedy Central’s legendary Chappelle’s Show, for which he received three Emmy nominations. Together, Brennan and Dave Chappelle wrote and produced virtually every sketch on the show themselves. A longtime writing partner of Chappelle, Neal was a standout speaker in his televised Mark Twain Prize ceremony, wrote on his Emmy-winning 2016 Saturday Night Live hosting turn, and co-wrote the cult hit feature Half Baked. Neal also served as a Creative Consultant and on-air correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, for which he was personally picked by Noah to be his final guest. He was Executive Producer on Chris Rock’s special Chris Rock: Tamborine, Consulting Producer on Ellen Degeneres’ special Relatable, and collaborator with Seth Meyers on his White House Correspondents Dinner speech. In addition to standup, writing, directing, and producing, Brennan has also directed popular commercials for Sprite, Netflix, Best Buy and Nike.
The Osbournes was MTV’s biggest show – and it almost cost Jack Osbourne his life. Here’s how his family’s reality TV fame stole his childhood, and how he’s been able to heal since.
About Jack Osbourne:
Jack Osbourne is well known for participating in reality TV shows with his celebrity family, like The Osbournes and Ozzy and Jack’s World Tour. Jack has also overcome and dealt with great difficulties in his life, such as dyslexia, drug addiction, an MS diagnosis, depression, various medical scares in his family, and more. His ability to bounce back from these challenges has served as inspiration for others undergoing difficulties in life. Jack uses his platform to advocate for people living with MS.
Jim Lee, President, Publisher, and Chief Creative Officer of tells us how his childhood obsession with Superman changed his life.
Jim Lee is synonymous with DC Comics now, but when he was first charting his path, his family pushed him towards medical school. In this interview, Jim shares how he reasoned with his parents and bought time to pursue his dream of being a comic book artist over the span of a gap year.
About Jim Lee:
Jim Lee, a world-renowned comic book artist, writer, editor and publisher, is currently Chief Creative Officer of DC (DC) and Publisher for the company.
Known for his incredibly detailed and dynamic artistic style, Lee is one of the most revered and respected artists in American comics. A veritable legend in the industry, he has received numerous accolades and recognition for his work, including the Harvey Special Award for New Talent in 1990, the Inkpot Award in 1992, and the Wizard Fan Award in 1996, 2002 and 2003.
Shaka Senghor spent 19 years in prison, 7 of them in solitary confinement. This is how he found true freedom.
The way Shaka Senghor tells his story, he found himself incarcerated long before he officially went to prison for second-degree murder, and he experienced freedom long before completing his sentence at the age of 38.
Senghor ran away from home and got drawn into the crack cocaine trade at the age of 14. After a series of traumatic events, he felt trapped in a narrative that dictated his life could only lead to limited outcomes: an early grave or a prison cell.
In our intimate interview, Senghor shares the three "keys" that transformed his perspective on life and have enabled him to live as a genuinely free man today.
“The Blind Side” only told part of Michael Oher’s story. Now, he tells us the rest.
You might know Michael Oher as the subject of “The Blind Side,” the 2009 movie starring Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw. The film was based on the true story of Oher, a young Black football player, who gained a second chance at life after being adopted by white parents.
But Oher’s version of the story is a lot different, and it starts long before the Tuohys entered the picture.
In this interview conducted with our partner Unlikely Collaborators, Oher paints a picture of the crack epidemic in the ‘80s and ‘90s, a broken and tumultuous family, and a young boy determined to climb out of it.
About Michael Oher:
Michael Oher gained widespread recognition through Michael Lewis's book "The Blind Side" and its film adaptation, which depicted his difficulties in early life and time playing college football. After attending the University of Mississippi, he played in the NFL for the Baltimore Ravens, Tennessee Titans, and Carolina Panthers, winning the SuperBowl with the Ravens in 2013.
Michael has also written two books: I Beat The Odds and When You’re Back’s Against The Wall, which detail his struggles and successes in life, imparting wisdom on how to overcome adversity. Michael has also contributed to the book Blindsided, where he outlines his experience of early-stage CTE, how he walked away from the NFL, and his urgent recommendations to reform football and make it a safer sport.
Built from the material of your beliefs (aka, the bullshit you tell yourself and collect from those around you over the course of your life), the Perception Box™ has the power to distort your reality and leave you feeling isolated, disconnected, and fearful. By asking sometimes contradictory but always consequential questions, we’ll show you how to understand and work with your Perception Box—how to overcome the limiting beliefs that hold you back, expand the possibilities of perception, and invite in new ways of seeing and being seen.
A guided body awareness mediation to help you get out of your head and into your body. Learn to tune into your body for a heads up on what you’re feeling before you explode. It’s literally your friend on the inside.
Simple, easy, and faster than chasing down that driver that cut you off.
Orin Davis earned the first doctorate in positive psychology, and is a self-actualization engineer who enables people to do and be their best. As the Principal Investigator of the Quality of Life Laboratory, he conducts research on flow, creativity, hypnosis, and mentoring. Dr. Davis consults for companies from startups to multinationals on hiring strategies, culture, innovation, and employee well-being. He is the author of Team Flow: The psychology of optimal collaboration.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Orin Davis about the new science of flow. A lot of people are familiar with the concept of flow, but according to Dr. Davis, the experience of it is not very common. They discuss Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s work and how Dr. Davis is expanding the research of flow by studying it at a group level. Dr. Davis talks about how we can increase the chances of experiencing flow for both individuals and teams. Orin and Scott also touch on the topics of microflow, hypnosis, absorption, positive psychology, and self-actualization.
Website: https://qllab.org/
X: @DrOrinDavis
Robert Sapolsky is professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and a research associate with the Institute of Primate Research at the National Museum of Kenya. His research has been featured in the National Geographic documentary "Stress: Portrait of a Killer". At age 30, Robert received the MacArthur Foundation's "genius" grant. He is author of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, A Primate's Memoir, The Trouble with Testosterone and Monkeyluv. His latest book is called Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Robert Sapolsky about life without free will. Humans like the idea of having control over their lives, but Robert asserts that free will is just an illusion. Life beyond free will may sound unpleasant, but Robert explains the profound consequences of this belief in reforming the justice system, meritocracy, and education. Robert and Scott also touch on the topics of philosophy, quantum physics, mindfulness, grit, and responsibility.
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/robertsapolsky/
For over 40 years, Bob Mankoff has been the driving force of comedy and satire at some of the most honored publications in America, including The New Yorker and Esquire. He is the founder of Cartoon Collections, parent company to CartoonStock.com, the world’s most successful cartoon licensing platform. For twenty years as Cartoon Editor for The New Yorker, Bob pored over thousands of submissions each week, analyzing, critiquing, and selecting each cartoon. In 2005, he helped start the “New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest.” Bob is the author of numerous books, including his New York Times bestselling memoir, How About Never – Is Never Good For You?: My Life In Cartoons.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Bob Mankoff about the psychology of humor. Looking back at his illustrious career as a cartoonist, Bob talks about his early beginnings and the people he's mentored in the field. He explains the anatomy of a joke and reveals his all-time favorite cartoons. While humans are creative creatures, Bob believes that using AI and technology can further augment our intelligence and humor by opening up worlds of possibilities.
Website: www.bobmankoff.com
X: @BobMankoff
Joseph Goldstein is a co-founder and the guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) along with Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg. He is one of the first American vipassana teachers and has been teaching Buddhist meditation worldwide since 1974. A contemporary author of numerous popular books on Buddhism, his publications include Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, One Dharma, Insight Meditation and others.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Joseph Goldstein about Buddhism and the impermanence of life. Being too attached to the self can bring suffering. However, this doesn’t mean that we need to forego our identities or self-care. Joseph explains that enlightenment can be achieved when the mind is free from clinging. He talks about the different states that can help us realize the insight of impermanence and selflessness. Scott and Joseph also touch on the topics of mindfulness, compassion, creativity, and wisdom.
Website: www.dharma.org
X: @onedharma
Dan Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. Dr. Siegel is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute. He’s authored numerous articles, chapters, and books including the New York Times bestsellers Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human and Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence. His latest book is called IntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Dr. Dan Siegel about expanding the notion of the self. Modern culture has taught us that the self is all about individual identity and personal experiences. But Dr. Siegel posits that who we are is not limited to the brain or body. He argues that the self is not isolated, it’s composed of our relationships to other living beings and to the natural world. This expanded view of the self has important implications for the trajectory of humanity. Dan and Scott also touch on the topics of consciousness, neuroscience, quantum physics, and the flow state.
Website: drdansiegel.com
Instagram: @DrDanSiegel
Michael Slepian is the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia University. A recipient of the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, he is the leading expert on the psychology of secrets. He’s authored more than fifty articles on secrecy, truth, and deception. Michael’s research has been covered by The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, BBC, The Wall Street Journal and more. He is the author of The Secret Life of Secrets.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Michael Slepian about the psychology of secrets. Everyone has secrets that they keep from others—how does this affect our relationships and well-being? According to Michael, maintaining privacy is not the most burdensome aspect. Carrying a secret all by ourselves is what weighs us down. Michael and Scott explore the different categories of secrets and we talk about when to reveal the deepest parts of ourselves and who to reveal them to. Scott and Michael also touch on the topics of personality, morality, trauma, developmental psychology and communication.
Website: michaelslepian.com
X: @michaelslepian
Monica Parker is the founder of global human analytics and change consultancy HATCH, whose clients include blue-chip companies such as LinkedIn, Google, Prudential, and LEGO. Her career has been nothing short of colorful, having been an opera singer, a museum exhibition designer, a policy director, a Chamber of Commerce CEO, and a homicide investigator. She is also a world-renowned speaker, writer, and the author of The Power of Wonder.
Scott Barry Kaufman talks to Monica Parker about the power of wonder. In today’s fast-paced world, most people fail to notice the richness of life. To become more wonder-prone, Monica encourages us all to slow down and pursue meaningful exploration. When we pay more careful attention to the world, we become more empathetic, resilient, and exuberant. Monica shares with her cycle of wonder framework and how we can be more open and present in our daily lives. Monica and Scott also touch on the topics of personality, post-traumatic growth, mindfulness, and education.
Website: www.monica-parker.com
Instagram: @monicacparker
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