Hey there, Shankar here with some exciting news.

Our live perceptions tour is returning the summer

in partnership with public radio stations around the country.

This time, we're heading to Northampton, Massachusetts,

Burlington, Vermont, Boulder, Colorado, Grand Rapids, Michigan,

Blacksburg, Virginia, San Luis Obispo, California,

and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. More information is at

Hiddenbrain.org slash tour. I hope to see you at one of our upcoming stops. Okay, here's

today's show. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

Think about a time you flipped through an old family album.

Maybe you paused on a photo of your grandparents as young adults.

Their clothes look outdated.

Their expressions, too former.

Perhaps you imagine what it was like to live in that time and found it impossible. Or think of a film set in medieval times.

You may have thought, wow, these people lived in a completely different universe.

I have so little in common with them.

It's easy to believe the past is sealed off from us,

that those lives, those cultures, those ways of thinking,

have vanished from the world.

But is that true?

In ways we don't even notice, the choices, beliefs,

and habits of people who lived long before us continue to shape how we see the world today.

...