You and Betty and the nancy's and bills and Joes and Janes will find in the study of science a richer, more rewarding life.

Hey, welcome to Inquiring Minds. I'm Indravis Gantus. This is a podcast that explores the space where science and society collide.

We want to find out what's true, what's left to discover, and why it matters.

This week, we get to talk to Temple Grandin.

She's a pioneer in our understanding of how autistic minds work, and in particular,

visual thinking. She has also made a huge impact in improving the welfare of farm animals,

which she attributes to the way she thinks. She's a professor of animal science at Colorado

State University, and her previous best-selling books include

Animals in Translation, The Autistic Brain, and Thinking in Pictures.

Thinking in Pictures, by the way, if you haven't seen it, was made into an HBO movie

starring Claire Daines.

Her new book, Visual Thinking, builds on several decades of research that she did, both in terms

of surveying the literature

and talking to thousands of people who think in pictures, to better understand this

underappreciated way in which some of our minds work.

Temple Grandin, welcome to Inquiring Minds.

Great to be here.

It's such a pleasure for me to read your book on visual thinking, because although you

have written about, you know, this idea, you know, many years ago, I felt like this time

I got a much better understanding of the entire spectrum of ways of thinking visually.

And I really, you know, want to say that it's remarkable the work that you've done over the last

few years to sort of really understand more deeply, not just your own thinking, but other people

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