Unpacking the Brain’s Role in Inventing Your Perception

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.3 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Human brains don’t just perceive reality—they invent it. In this episode of Science Quickly, cognitive neuroscientist Daniel Yon speaks with host Rachel Feltman about how perception is an active process of prediction in which the brain constructs theories about the world that can sometimes lead us astray. Drawing from his book A Trick of the Mind, he reveals why this “hallucination” of reality is not a flaw but a fundamental feature of how we navigate the world. Recommended Reading A Trick of the Mind. Daniel Yon. Grand Central Publishing, 2025 The Neuroscience of Reality E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Here's the truth about AI.
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0:21.9	use right now. That's why the world works with ServiceNow. Visit ServiceNow.com
0:27.8	slash UK slash AI for people. For science, For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman.
0:52.8	You probably think you're listening to my voice right now, but what if I told you that you're
0:58.0	actually experiencing a sophisticated hallucination? Perception isn't the passive process that most of us
1:05.7	imagine it to be, with our senses simply recording reality and sending it up to our brains for processing.
1:12.2	Instead, our brains are constantly constructing theories about what's going on around us.
1:18.0	And sometimes our brains get reality wrong.
1:21.7	Here to explain this mind-bending way of looking at, well, the mind, is Daniel Yon,
1:26.9	an associate professor of cognitive neuroscience and director, the mind, is Daniel Jan, an associate professor of cognitive
1:29.0	neuroscience and director of the uncertainty lab at Birkbeck University of London.
1:34.4	Daniel is also the author of a recent book called A Trick of the Mind, How the Brain Invents Your
1:40.1	Reality. Thank you so much for coming on to chat with us.
1:43.7	Thank you for having me.
1:44.6	So why don't you start by telling me a little bit about your background and how it led
1:48.1	you to write your latest book?
	...

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