Explain the Brain

What's really important when it comes to raising good readers? This Harvard psychologist has found parents matter even more than you might think.

What's really going on in the minds of synesthetes?

When you see someone with a frightened face, it's hard to look away. Charles Nelson looks at when, and why, we get this attraction to fear.

This Harvard psychologist's work has shown that most of us are racist, sexist, age-ist, class-ist, able-ist, and so on. Basically we're pre-destined to stereotype others. But, she says, that doesn't mean we can't retrain our brains to move past prejudices.

A longer version of this interview appeared in Episode 7 of The Organist podcast: https://soundcloud.com/the-organist/mahzarin-banaji-ep-7-the

Conventional thinking about brains and blame can be useless in a court of law.

When it comes to learning language, kids aren't just copying adults.

That whole idea of an internal clock? It's a lie.

This New York University psychologist sends infants over cliffs in order to watch them learn locomotion. You will never look at a crawling baby the same way again after hearing this story.

This Vassar College psychologist blames adolescent blunders on a surprising cause: over-thinking. She says teenagers have to concentrate to do simple tasks that adults can get through on auto-pilot.