meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

Ep106 "What happens when brains watch movies?" (with Jeffrey Zacks)

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

iHeartPodcasts

Mental Health, Science, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Education

4.6524 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why do movies work so well? What does film reveal about the way the brain processes reality? What does any of this have to do with omniscience, simulation, jumping around in time, or why dogs don’t do story? Join Eagleman with guest Jeffrey Zacks, cognitive scientist at Wash U, as we dive into the peculiar magic that happens when the lights go down, the screen glows to life, and we find ourselves pulled into the world of a film.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Why do movies work so well?

0:07.9

What does film reveal about the way that the brain processes reality?

0:12.6

And what does any of this have to do with omniscience or simulation or jumping around in time

0:19.2

or why dogs don't do story or what you would think if

0:23.7

you saw aliens gluing all their attention to purple spheres.

0:30.2

Welcome to Intercosmos with me, David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford.

0:35.4

And in these episodes, we examine brains

0:38.7

to understand who we are and where we're going. This is an IHeart podcast.

0:58.4

Are there any pictures of you online?

1:00.5

Then you could already be in a massive police database without even knowing it.

1:04.6

Clearview scrapes together images from Facebook, from LinkedIn, from Venmo accounts.

1:10.2

I'm Dexter Thomas, host a KillSwitch,

1:12.1

a podcast about how living in the future is affecting us right now. Police, they are trusting

1:17.3

the software with this magical ability to lead them to the right suspect. In this episode,

1:22.5

we dive into how cops are using AI and facial recognition and sometimes getting it wrong

1:27.3

and putting innocent

1:28.1

people behind bars. So if your accuser is this algorithm, but you're not even being told that it was

1:34.7

used, let alone given any of the details about how it works. Listen to KillSwitch on the IHeart

1:40.2

Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

1:47.4

We love learning about this extraordinary universe.

1:49.3

And we love sharing what we've learned.

1:53.8

And on our podcast, Daniel and Kelly's extraordinary universe, that's what we're going to do.

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.