Mind Field Season 3
In the third season of Mind Field, creator/host Michael Stevens continues his never-ending quest to uncover the inner workings of the human mind. With unprecedented access to leading universities and researchers who are turning science fiction into science fact, Michael travels farther than he ever has before, designing demonstrations which put theories to the test in the real world.
Episodes
E1Humans are the only Earthlings with complex language. But at what cost was that ability acquired? In this episode, Michael Stevens visit Tetsuro Matsuzawa to learn about his influential cognitive tradeoff hypothesis.
E2How are our moral decisions influenced by factors we’re not aware of? A phenomenon known as Moral Licensing claims that when we do something good, we often subconsciously allow ourselves to then do something bad. In…
E3There are 100 billion individual neurons in the human brain. Working together, they allow us to make sense of, and move through, the world around us. Scientists have built replicas of the human brain with computers, but…
E4Normal people can become monsters, given the right situation. That’s the standard narrative of the Stanford Prison Experiment, one of the most famous psychological experiments of all time. But what if the cause of its…
E5If I could live forever, should I? How does being reminded of our own mortality affect us psychologically? In this episode I speak with mortician and death positivity activist Caitlin Doughty and visit a cryonics…
E6Are we alone in the universe? Even if we could contact aliens, what would we say? How would we say it? And, most importantly, should we even be trying to make contact at all? This episode takes me on a journey to…
E7How can a lie become true? In this episode, Dr. Aaron Blaisdell and I create a game show that is actually a giant "human Skinner Box" to observe the formation of superstitious beliefs. And Dr. Samuel Veissière helps me…
E8In this episode I visit a researcher who is studying memory by using machine learning and neuroimaging to detect and predict people's brain states. I also travel to Japan to meet with a team working on ways to record…