[Cosmic Queries] Our Brains on Film: Neurocinematics with Heather Berlin

What does your brain do when watching movies? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice discover the field of neurocinematics and the difference between fiction and reality with neuroscientist Heather Berlin, PhD.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Got Chuck Nice with me. Chuck, baby.

• 0:21Chuck Nice?

  Hey Neil, what's happening?

• 0:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, all right. Today's gonna be cosmic queries. And you know what the subject is gonna be? Oh my, this is a good subject, this is a good subject.

• 0:29Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 0:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's your brain on movies.

• 0:32Chuck Nice?

  Your brain on movies? Okay, now I remember the commercials where my brain was in a skillet.

• 0:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I remember that one. Your brain on drugs.

• 0:39Chuck Nice?

  This is your brain, and this is your brain on breakfast.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, how old are you?

• 0:43Chuck Nice?

  Uh, good, no.

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That commercial was 1971 or something, I don't know.

• 0:49Chuck Nice?

  No, no way. No way. I think that was the 90s.

• 0:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, they took a fried egg and dropped it into a very hot skillet. This is your brain on drugs.

• 0:58Chuck Nice?

  And every time I saw it, I was like, and now I'm hungry. Now I'm just hungry, I just want breakfast now.

• 1:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, this is a brain episode, and we don't do brain things without our brain brainiac at large, Heather Berlin. Heather, welcome back to StarTalk.

• 1:12Heather Berlin?

  Hey, how are you guys doing? Thanks for having me.

• 1:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, excellent, excellent.

• 1:16Heather Berlin?

  That's gonna be my new self heading. Dr. Heather Berlin.

• 1:20Chuck Nice?

  Brain Brainiac.

• 1:21Heather Berlin?

  At Large.

• 1:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and so you're a neuroscientist at the Icahn School of Medicine in Mount Sinai, and right here in New York City. So it's great to have you back for the gazillionth time. We love the brain as a subject, and especially since I don't have any expertise, I get to learn something for every one of these episodes. That's part of why we love you as a guest, because I get to learn. And so, but first, let me start off with some questions. There are a subset of movies that specialize in unusual things going on in people's brains, right? And some of them are just really smart people, all right? And they become the subject of it.

• 2:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But there's also what's going on in the brain of the person watching the movie. And it seems to be more than just entertainment. Sometimes extra changes are going on in people's heads. And one of the biggest ones that people always ask about is, do violent movies make you violent? Do they desensitize you? Well, can you distinguish between fiction violence and actual violence? And if you do, then what's everybody complaining about? And if you can't, why hasn't all of that been outlawed, you know, 100 years ago?

• 2:39Heather Berlin?

  Good question. There's actually, there have been some neuroimaging studies, which look at what happens in people's brains when they're looking, when they're watching violent videos, let's say a riot or somebody getting beaten up. And they compare it to when they're viewing a natural scene. And what they find is actually when they're viewing violence images, they get decreased activation of parts of their prefrontal cortex. If it was the scene of an actual riot or one that was, you know, created with actors, most of the time, it won't make a difference in terms of that decreased activation in the prefrontal cortex. Because the more engrossed you are in a film, and there are other measures that can look at level of engrossment,

• 3:22Heather Berlin?

  the more you perceive that as your reality. And so it can decrease your prefrontal cortex activation. And in turn, you might be more prone toward either impulsive or violent behavior for a short period of time after you've watched that film.

• 3:39Chuck Nice?

  So now, what happens if you're looking at the nature scene? And you just feel like killing flowers? Then what's that mean?

• 3:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or trouncing on the grasses.

• 3:54Chuck Nice?

  Right. You just want to stomp dandelions, you know what I mean?

• 3:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think we have a different sense of killing plants than we do of killing animals.

• 4:03Heather Berlin?

  But here's what's really interesting. I mean, there are measures. So there's something, I mean, there's a whole field now called neurocinematics, which is basically the study of what your brain looks like when, you know, you're watching film. And one of the big measures they look at is something called intersubject correlation. So it's not what areas of the brain are active in your particular brain, per se, when you're watching a film. But they'll look across many subjects, all watching the same film. And the level at which their brain activation syncs up. Is a measure of how engrossing that film is, how much it's able to capture your attention. And films vary in their ability to do this. So for example, the highest intersubject correlation in this study was Alfred Hitchcock film.

• 4:45Heather Berlin?

  So he was a master at using cinematography and all this sound and light to grab people's attention and draw them in and play them like a violin. Whereas other films, less so, like compared to a Larry David episode, for example, which is more sort of naturalistic. He was less intersubject correlation.

• 5:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was an analysis, just right into playing it to exactly what you said, Heather. I've watched an analysis of a Hitchcock film, forgive me, I don't remember which, but somebody's walking down the stairs of this home with a glass of milk, which has poison in it, and they're going to feed the glass of milk to the person and kill them. And your eye goes straight to the milk. And I don't learn until this is analyzed by the reviewers, that Alfred Hitchcock put a light bulb inside the glass of milk, which gave it a kind of a glow. But you just see it as white. Milk is white, so it's just white, but it caught your attention. And you're not even thinking that it's glowing, you're just thinking it's milk.

• 5:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But so he was really right in there to do this.

• 5:52Chuck Nice?

  Interesting. And also, he was very good at creating the tension necessary to grab your gaze. So in Psycho, you never saw her get stabbed. It just didn't happen, you know? For all you knew, she had a bloody nose, because you never saw a knife go into her, you know? And then I forget the other one where there's a bomb under the table. And the whole idea is, you know there's a bomb under the table, but the people don't know there's a bomb under the table. So you're now feeling the anxiety as if you were sitting at the table, but you can't tell these people there's a bomb there. Like, get up, get out, you know?

• 6:36Heather Berlin?

  But here's the thing, it's that suspense is what draws people. Because once these sort of surprise happens, or you know, the guy jumps out from behind the closet, it's kind of, it's over. Then you just have this full like fear response. But the buildup is what draws you.

• 6:50Chuck Nice?

  That's your feargasm.

• 6:51Heather Berlin?

  That was your feargasm.

• 6:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For those who love it.

• 6:53Heather Berlin?

  But it's the buildup that's the real, you know, that's what draws you in. What's gonna happen? When is it gonna happen? Where should I look? And they also have done eye tracking studies. So on certain films, you know, you look across many subjects and they're all concentrated at looking at the same places on the screen. But when you have them, they compared it to, for example, looking at a natural scene in like Washington Square Park, just natural footage. And people are looking in all other directions. But just because eye gaze is at a certain place doesn't mean that the brains are synced up. So you have to look at both behavior, which is eye gaze, and brain activation. Because there's parts of the brain that have to do with self referential. So they do it for commercials, too. They're using now brain scans to make good commercials. And they find that they wanna create, they'll test different videos. The ones that activate the amygdala,

• 7:38Heather Berlin?

  which is the kind of emotional center of the brain, and these parts of the prefrontal cortex that have to do with your personal story that are self referential. So the more that the images or the story can you reflect and refers to something in your own history, the more emotionally attached you'll be to it. So these are the kinds of ways they're trying to structure, for example, commercials and also film. You know, film is more engrossing when you can relate to it.

• 8:00Chuck Nice?

  Okay, but wait one second here. Isn't, isn't, doesn't there have to be a diminishing return on that? Like, the more you manipulate me, the less I'm able to be manipulated. Because like, you're toying with my emotions, kind of? And so I'm not gonna keep giving you that same emotional response.

• 8:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, why not?

• 8:24Chuck Nice?

  When you see.

• 8:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why not?

• 8:25Chuck Nice?

  Because, okay, think of it this way. When you go to the puppy store, you're like, oh my god, these puppies, puppies!

• 8:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if you, but if you work at the puppy store, you say, get the, get the, get these smelly puppies out of here.

• 8:38Chuck Nice?

  Right, now you're like, F these puppies!

• 8:41Heather Berlin?

  And here's the thing.

• 8:42Chuck Nice?

  These poop. Crap it all, crap it all over the place.

• 8:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Poop machine puppies, right.

• 8:46Chuck Nice?

  Exactly, right? They stank, stank, stank ass puppies all over the place. I can't stand puppies. You know what I like? I like dogs, cuz they get the hell out my store.

• 9:00Heather Berlin?

  Here's the thing. Here's the thing. It's not like a steady stream of emotional manipulation. So if you think of, for example, even a Hitchcock movie or any suspense movie, it's not suspense the whole time. Then your brain would habituate and it would get boring. It's build up, build up, surprise, and then like mundane, mundane, and then another suspenseful moment. So with commercials, they can vary. You know, it's not that the whole time you're being emotionally manipulated. It might just be at the end or, you know, interspersed with other things. So as long as you can vary it, right, and change it up a bit, you'll keep being activated by the emotions. Like, but if you were to see, you know, those animal rescue commercials, which kill me with the animals in the cages.

• 9:43Heather Berlin?

  But if you were to see one commercial like that after the other, after the other, after the other.

• 9:47Chuck Nice?

  I'm Sarah McLachlan.

• 9:52Chuck Nice?

  Won't you please help? These animals need you so much.

• 9:59Heather Berlin?

  Yes, yes. So we can, anyway, the point is as we're using neuroimaging to help filmmakers, we're also, you know, it's also being used in the advertising industry as well to create more engrossing commercials. So it's where science meets, you know, the arts in another way.

• 10:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Now, you throw this term around very glibly, and I just want to make sure we're on the same page. When you say prefrontal cortex, is this larger in humans than in other mammals?

• 10:31Heather Berlin?

  Well, okay, so it's relative. So the relative size of the prefrontal cortex compared to the rest of the brain, humans have the largest prefrontal cortex compared to the rest of the brain than other animals. But if you think of it like a whale, objectively, it has a larger prefrontal cortex than a human. But the ratio, so compared to the rest of the brain, we have the largest prefrontal cortex compared to the rest of the brain.

• 10:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the prefrontal cortex does what for us specifically?

• 10:58Heather Berlin?

  Many things. I mean, it's my favorite part of the brain.

• 11:03Chuck Nice?

  By the way, by the way, the hippocampus just called and said, screw you too.

• 11:08Heather Berlin?

  We broke up a long time ago.

• 11:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So your prefrontal cortex, what precisely does that do for us as humans?

• 11:16Heather Berlin?

  So it's my favorite part of the brain because it's involved in so many things, one of which is impulse control, how to both regulate our emotions, control our impulses, decision making, organization. We call it, it's the executive function. It's the executor of the brain.

• 11:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it enables civilization to exist.

• 11:36Heather Berlin?

  Basically, yes. I've often said that without the prefrontal cortex, there would be no civilization. We would just be busy having our immediate rewards and not thinking about building or creating a future or anything like that.

• 11:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 11:47Chuck Nice?

  Well, there are other animals that have societies as well. Do they have developed prefrontal cortexes? I mean, other, other great apes actually have hierarchies. They have social constructs. They have means of communication. They have tasks that they all kind of allocate to one another and positions.

• 12:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But Chuck, they don't have trains, planes and automobiles and, you know, and skyscrapers.

• 12:09Chuck Nice?

  And wouldn't it be funny if they, if they actually thought of that and said, you know what, one day that's going to lead us to a place where we destroy ourselves and the planet.

• 12:17Heather Berlin?

  But then there's something really cool. There's something called the Dunbar number. So it's created by someone, a researcher named Dunbar. But basically, if you look at...

• 12:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I thought it was created by somebody named Number.

• 12:26Heather Berlin?

  Dunbar, Dunbar. Yeah, Dunbar.

• 12:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's good, Chuck, right?

• 12:35Chuck Nice?

  Oh, okay. I'm sorry, Heather. You had to, you walked into that one. That was good. That was good.

• 12:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dunbar number created by somebody named Number. Yeah, okay.

• 12:46Heather Berlin?

  So there, there is a direct correlation between relative size of the prefrontal cortex to the rest of the brain and the, the scale of the society. So you can tell how many, yeah, so, so the larger the societies of, you know, that works, the larger the prefrontal cortex, humans have the largest, and as you go down with the great apes and, and other species, the sizes of their society directly correlate to the size of their prefrontal cortex. So there's something about, you know, social interactions, but there's also thinking about the future, being able to plan for the future. And so, yeah, without our prefrontal cortex, there would be no society.

• 13:21Chuck Nice?

  So, so there are no, there are no shrimp sitting around going, I wonder if there is indeed a night sky.

• 13:27Heather Berlin?

  No concept.

• 13:28Chuck Nice?

  But also, why am I so lonely? Why am I so lonely? Where are the other shrimp? How come no one ever talks to me?

• 13:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And why am I here? What is my mission?

• 13:37Heather Berlin?

  What is my purpose as a shrimp?

• 13:41Chuck Nice?

  What is the meaning of shrimpdom?

• 13:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so, so that means almost everything you've described in the prefrontal cortex is an interaction point in a movie that you sit down and watch.

• 13:52Heather Berlin?

  Oh, well, that's interesting.

• 13:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I say that because it, you can't really show a movie to a dog, right? They're not, they're, they're not interested, even though they're recognizable people.

• 14:03Chuck Nice?

  Not even Lady and the Tramp?

• 14:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're recognizable people, they're recognizable scenes there, but they're not, they're not going to interact mentally the way we are, because it's a mental thing.

• 14:13Heather Berlin?

  They're not going to get meaning out of it. They're not going to extract meaning. I mean, you can show an animal, a dog, a, a video of other dogs, and it will be, you know, it'll grab its attention and it'll, it'll be attracted to it and it'll watch it even. But to then extrapolate meaning, or how is this reference to me, you know, self-referential, they're not, other species aren't going to have that.

• 14:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, I met a dog once that jumped up and barked anytime I saw a dog on the TV, and that was hilarious.

• 14:38Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The dog I grew up with didn't, didn't, didn't care about the TV.

• 14:42Chuck Nice?

  It's also a dumb dog. What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do, honey?

• 14:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the dog I had was pretty smart growing up, right? So she did not bark at, didn't stare at herself in the mirror, you know, it was like.

• 14:56Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 14:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so Heather, we know, Chuck and I know that you are, you're a mind reader, okay? You, you attach electrodes to whoever walks within 10 feet of you, and then you study this. So it's one thing to just say there's, there's activation in one part of the brain or the other, we get that, but what's this I hear that recently you can actually reconstruct the thoughts? Rather than just say where the thought is happening, that's a whole other level of getting inside somebody's head.

• 15:28Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 15:29Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, I mean, so, so we're at the early stages now. So, so basically, you would, you would feed, you would have someone in a scanner, you would show them a picture, say, of a, you know, a shoe or a cat, and you would get this pattern of activation based on these like voxels, like the little pixels that, that you can read as an image. And then you fed this into this algorithm, this computer algorithm. And then what?

• 15:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To be clear, a voxel is a three dimensional pixel.

• 15:55Heather Berlin?

  Yes.

• 15:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isn't that correct? I'm, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, okay.

• 15:59Heather Berlin?

  Yes, yes, yes. So, so based on this sort of, let's just say, you know, this, this data of, of what the brain is doing when it's seeing a particular image, then you can show a person a different image, and the, give that information to the computer, and based on, on, on feeding it many, many other images that, you know, a person might see, it can predict what image you're looking at. So it can predict based on your brain activation.

• 16:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interpret. Interpret.

• 16:31Heather Berlin?

  Interpret.

• 16:32Chuck Nice?

  I, I would say identify.

• 16:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Identify.

• 16:33Chuck Nice?

  It would identify the, the, the image you're looking at based on the feedback that it's receiving from you. After you would give all the information to it, it then looks at you and determines what you're looking at.

• 16:47Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 16:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. With shapes and everything, shapes?

• 16:50Heather Berlin?

  It makes its best, its best guess at what you're looking at.

• 16:54Chuck Nice?

  How, how accurate, though? How, how, you say early stages, but how, how well is it performing?

• 16:59Heather Berlin?

  A high degree of accuracy.

• 17:00Chuck Nice?

  This process?

• 17:01Heather Berlin?

  It's a high degree of accuracy. I wanted to give you a number, but I don't have a number offhand. But very high degree of accuracy, maybe like 80%.

• 17:07Chuck Nice?

  You guys always, you, you're just, you're never satisfied, are you?

• 17:10Heather Berlin?

  Right, no.

• 17:11Chuck Nice?

  You're never satisfied. I mean, first come up with artificial intelligence, now, now, you're gonna let machines be able to read our minds, okay? I mean, and then on top of that, okay, let me just say this, uh, I feel sorry for your husband. I know him very well, okay? He's married to a woman who says, "What are you thinking?" And he goes, "Nothing." And she's like, "No, I'm gonna find out." I'm gonna find out right now what the hell you're thinking.

• 17:36Heather Berlin?

  I'm gonna find out.

• 17:37Chuck Nice?

  Right, that's right, yeah. Don't worry, when you go to sleep, we gonna find out what you were thinking.

• 17:42Heather Berlin?

  Speaking of which, speaking of which, actually, so there's been studies that have done that. This was a paper that was published in Science, where they woke up people at different stages of sleep. And they would say, what were you, they were in the scanner, so they were imaging their brain at the time. And they would ask them to report what they were seeing, what they were dreaming about. And again, the computer algorithm could predict with very high accuracy, for example, that they, the computer would spit out the same image of a person, or a key, or a chair. And the person would say, you know, I was having this dream about this person, and there was like a key on the chair, or whatever. It would correlate with what the algorithm, right? So now you can start to read dreams.

• 18:27Heather Berlin?

  And they do, and they've done it now with images. So they've had people watching films. And, and the, and the, the, the computer basically constructs a video based on what it thinks you're seeing, based on your brain activation, which really, it's amazing, you can go online and see this, this, these images, that really look like the actual film they're seeing. It's fuzzy, and it's not, you know, it's not a clear image, but it's a fuzzy, like, moving object, that's moving in a similar pattern, as to what the person is seeing. So again, I say early stages, because it's not this exact, it's, it's very fuzzy. But as time goes on, it's going to get clearer and clearer. And

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Could you, could you identify that monster that was always chasing me as a kid in my dreams?

• 19:09Heather Berlin?

  I'll have to send it to the algorithm. They'll print out a picture.

• 19:14Chuck Nice?

  The algorithm, the algorithm is now Freddy Krueger. The Freddy Krueger algorithm.

• 19:20Heather Berlin?

  I mean, what's going to be really cool, honestly, that you mentioned that, Neil, is that ultimately, we can combine that with other techniques that we're using to like, kind of zap out fearful memories. And there, if, with neural implants, with neural implants, yeah, you can then see, oh, this person's having a type of brain activation, which suggests it's a scary monster coming into the dream. And then do a little, you know, zap, and just, you know, change the scene. Yeah, that ultimately

• 19:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, all, all of my images would basically come back, not as visuals, but as a wah-wah guitar going, wow, wow, wow.

• 19:58Heather Berlin?

  The auditory cortex.

• 19:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, but plus you have to be careful because if you if you zap the part where it's a monster chasing you, it could turn it into like a like a bunny rabbit chasing you, you know? Now you're scared of bunny.

• 20:10Heather Berlin?

  Suddenly you wake up and you're totally afraid of bunny. Yeah, I mean, once you start looking around with the hardware, you never know what's gonna happen. It's true. You need to be careful. Yeah. At some level, we are, we're getting to the point where it's gonna be something like, you know, Minority Report, perhaps, you know, not that you can predict the future, but that you can kind of read people's brain activity and see what they were thinking at a particular time. And if you're, if you can record that information, you know, you can see whether a person might have committed a crime or so forth. So, I mean, it can be used in all sorts of ways. So it's something we have to think about.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that was one of the great, yeah, the Minority Report, one of the great brain movies, when you think about it that way. And of course, half the episodes of the Netflix series Black Mirror involve the brain behaving just like a disk of data that you can upload and download and alter and and so. Great series. So, yeah, it was, was. And if Heather continues as she is, she will be the Black Mirror. Yeah. She will be. We'll take a quick break. We'll take a quick break. When we come, this is a Cosmic Queries. When we come back, we're gonna pick up questions from our loyal Patreon members. And Chuck has them all lined up. We'll start talking to you.

• 21:38Speaker 03

  I'm Joel Cherico, and I make pottery. You can see my pottery on my website, cosmicmugs.com. Cosmic Mugs, art that lets you taste the universe every day. And I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 21:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk, your brain on movies with Heather Berlin. And of course, I got Chuck Nice here. Heather, how do we find you on social media?

• 22:07Heather Berlin?

  Heather underscore Berlin on Twitter and Instagram. Don't forget the underscore, which I know you love me.

• 22:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, underscore is like the lamest thing that could ever be in a handle, but we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll accept it.

• 22:21Heather Berlin?

  Thank you.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Before we go to questions, let me ask a quick. I'm, I am, while I find them entertaining, there's an absence of plausibility that concerns me. Anytime it's one of these movies where someone gets really, really, really smart. And those people in every one of these movies do things like move objects with their brain power. And it's like, no. If you're smarter, you'll just solve problems faster or better. You're not going to all of a sudden start moving stuff. So, so where did this come from? Why do people think your brain could ever possibly have that power? Other than just, I'm really smart, so I can solve something you can't.

• 23:01Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, I think it's all predicated on this myth that we only use 10% of our brain. And like, imagine, we can use all of our brain and the powers we would have, but that's the myth.

• 23:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The entire premise of the movie Lucy. The entire premise.

• 23:13Heather Berlin?

  Exactly. Or Limitless is another one. You know, just take this pill and then you can use all your brain. Yeah, you use all of it.

• 23:19Chuck Nice?

  Idiocracy, idiocracy.

• 23:20Heather Berlin?

  Exactly. You use all your brain and none of it is redundant. It uses so many resources, energy, blood flow. It, it, we don't waste those resources in our body just thinking about evolution. But most of it is just happening outside of awareness. We're unconscious about what's happening. And sometimes we can, when we think about meditation and other techniques of mindfulness, we can bring more of what's happening unconsciously to our conscious attention. But it's not that we're using more of our brain. And I think with the like, being able to move things or telepathy, I mean, this is just wishful thinking on the part of people. I mean, I remember laying in the bed with my daughter and I did not want to get up. She said, please, Mom, I get that book on the shelf. And I said, let me just, let's both try really hard and just will it over here so we don't have to get up.

• 24:03Heather Berlin?

  And it just, it didn't work. It didn't work.

• 24:07Chuck Nice?

  And if you, and if it had worked, you'd have been like, all right, sweetie, and now you have to move out.

• 24:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Rename her Tabitha. Yeah, Tabitha, you can't live here anymore.

• 24:17Heather Berlin?

  Matilda, yeah.

• 24:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Either. So Chuck, give me some questions from our fanbase.

• 24:23Chuck Nice?

  All right. Here we go. Let's pop it off with Bridge. Bridge Karin or Charin says, have we gained any insight into the long-term effects of the brain, uh, long-term effects the brain gets from misinformation pop culture, specifically during the pandemic? I think more pointedly, what are the effects of exposure to misinformation? Whether you live in a misinformation bubble, or if you're just encountering misinformation that is counter to what, uh, you already believe? What, because that's what, that's what's happening now.

• 25:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and let me dovetail that. Can you ever emerge out of it?

• 25:05Heather Berlin?

  Hmm.

• 25:06Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 25:07Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 25:08Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 25:08Heather Berlin?

  Very big question.

• 25:10Chuck Nice?

  How do we save these poor saps who are being duped all the time?

• 25:14Heather Berlin?

  Well, you know, there's, there's a way of seeing the world and interacting with the world that I think, you know, as scientists learn early on, and it's sort of like question everything, you know, be skeptical, look for evidence. Um, but when you're in these echo chambers and these bubbles, and especially when they're, they're on issues where they are emotionally significant, um, people tend to disconfirm what doesn't go along with their beliefs in terms of the evidence and, and only pay attention to things that support what they already believe in. So the, so it's very difficult to break this bias. It's a cognitive bias.

• 25:55Heather Berlin?

  Um, but what you, the best way is that you have to meet a person where they're at. So say, oh, I hear you that you believe, I don't know, for example, that there's no such thing as, you know, climate change.

• 26:08Chuck Nice?

  Gravity.

• 26:09Heather Berlin?

  Whatever. The earth is flat.

• 26:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Flat earth.

• 26:11Heather Berlin?

  Right, right. I hear you that you believe that and I understand. And then sort of maybe even cite something that they're evidence for that, that they, and then say, that's really interesting, but have you ever thought about this other thing? There's also this other evidence that suggests this. You have, as soon as you come in, in an aggressive, controversial way, they're going to shut it out immediately. But if you meet people where they're at, empathize with their emotions and, okay, I hear you, you don't want to take vaccines. I know you're scared. You know, but let's talk about it and find a way in. Then maybe they'll be more open to hearing an alternative view. The way that people are doing it now isn't working. It's just like my side or you're crazy and that that's never gonna work.

• 26:50Chuck Nice?

  You know why? Because it's my side or you're crazy.

• 26:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's why it's that's why.

• 26:55Chuck Nice?

  That's why it's that way.

• 26:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, so Heather, this is a serious flaw in the human mind.

• 27:03Heather Berlin?

  Mm hmm. Yes.

• 27:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is there any understanding of its origins, evolutionarily or otherwise?

• 27:09Heather Berlin?

  Our, our, but well, there, there's something called it. So with group affiliation, right? It you were safer when you were in groups, right? And so there's also the higher the sort of entrance fee to get into the group, the greater the group affiliation. So if you think about like sororities and fraternities, how they have all these crazy things you have to do to get in. So once you're in this, yeah, you have protection of the group, whatever. But the psychology is that you've gone through so much to get into this group. You're more likely to be persuaded by their belief system and to want to keep that group affiliation. Because there are some evolutionary gains from that. There's protection, there's, you know, better survival in a group. So some of those group dynamics are also at play here.

• 27:54Heather Berlin?

  Um, you want to keep.

• 27:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so it basically it's it's miss. We still have these tendencies at a time in a place where we no longer need them. And so we are suffering from our own evolutionary past.

• 28:06Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, and also we're living in a, in this technology world now that our brains have not evolved quickly enough to to accommodate, right? Yeah, so are we have these old caveman brains, you know, in this modern technology with information being being bombarded by this information. Um, and and we're not able to process it and really analyze it in a way that's that's going to be to our advantage. So I think this is part of the problem. Yeah.

• 28:32Chuck Nice?

  Also, the, what you just said is, you know, what exacerbates the problem is we can find those groups and that safety because of the technology. Where otherwise we would have been ostracized and marginalized.

• 28:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And isolated, yeah.

• 28:48Chuck Nice?

  Because we felt that, you know, I don't know, eating children was a good thing. Right? But then we go online and we find like other people who say, you know, children are delicious. Why shouldn't we eat them? And then all of a sudden I, I, I feel like, oh, I'm, I'm okay. I'm all right.

• 29:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, is that the best example you could have given in this?

• 29:06Chuck Nice?

  I'm just curious that that is where your brain went to. Listen.

• 29:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of all the examples you could have given.

• 29:13Chuck Nice?

  I'm just saying, I, you know, I read Hansel and Gretel to my daughter the other day and it got me wondering.

• 29:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every one of those stories, somebody, a chilled child gets eaten, every one of those stories.

• 29:22Chuck Nice?

  Funny.

• 29:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 29:23Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry, at one point, eating kids was a thing, because guess what?

• 29:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A whole, a whole lot of those stories.

• 29:29Chuck Nice?

  Horror stories end up with somebody gotta eat a kid.

• 29:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Peter and the Wolf, right?

• 29:35Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 29:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hansel and Gretel.

• 29:36Chuck Nice?

  Right, riding on a good old red ride.

• 29:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Little Red Riding Hood.

• 29:40Chuck Nice?

  Eating the kid, Hansel and Gretel, eating the kid, okay? Eating the kid had to be a thing at some point.

• 29:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Goldilocks, Goldilocks.

• 29:48Chuck Nice?

  Goldilocks, eating the kid.

• 29:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck is onto something, I'm pretty sure.

• 29:56Chuck Nice?

  I'm telling you, man, eating the kid had to be a thing at some point. At some point in society, we said, you know what, man, we gotta stop eating these kids. This is out of control, guys.

• 30:09Chuck Nice?

  We can no longer mask it in our allegories and our children's horror stories. We just have to stop eating the kids.

• 30:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 30:20Chuck Nice?

  Alright, okay, I'm sorry.

• 30:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, back to, back to, back to base. Okay, Chuck, give me another question.

• 30:28Chuck Nice?

  Alright, here we go.

• 30:32Chuck Nice?

  This is Catherine Chalourini Moore says this, hello, doctors, and Chuck.

• 30:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She missed your Lord episode, so that's alright.

• 30:45Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. As augmented reality and virtual reality movies and gaming experiences become more mainstream, are we learning through scientific studies as to whether or not the brain processes AR, VR stories differently? Or the same as if we're watching a flat screen?

• 31:09Heather Berlin?

  Ooh.

• 31:10Chuck Nice?

  If so, what are the difference?

• 31:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or if you're watching just reality, right? I mean, just put that on the list, too.

• 31:15Heather Berlin?

  Right. So really, the differences are the level of engrossment. So the brain, it's dark in there. It's black. It doesn't actually see anything, right? And so all it is, is getting stimuli coming in as ones and zeros, you know, from the retina, let's say, visual stimuli, and it's interpreting that information. So whether it's real life, whether it's, you know, on a flat screen, whether it's virtual reality, it's if you're fully attending to that information and not having, there's always another little part of your brain saying, oh, you're watching a movie, or this isn't real. But once you kind of, you know, that's when they say, you know, you go to a film and you suspend your disbelief, right?

• 31:57Heather Berlin?

  So once you're in the mode of suspending your disbelief, it all is the same. And virtual reality is just much more engrossing. But you can be as engrossed in a virtual reality as you are when you're watching a film on a big screen. It doesn't make a huge difference, other than how, what is your ability to suspend your disbelief? And so that's the thing you're playing with. The more it becomes, the more engrossed you are, the easier it is to forget that you're, you know, this is a simulation.

• 32:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So just to put this on the table, I'm old enough to remember Sherri Lewis and her hand puppet, Lamb Chop. At no time did I think Lamb Chop was real. I could not suspend my disbelief looking at a talking sock.

• 32:44Heather Berlin?

  Did you try?

• 32:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Never worked for me at any age. No, I wasn't even gonna try. It's like, no, I'm not doing this.

• 32:51Heather Berlin?

  Okay, but how about this? Did you watch Sesame Street? Or maybe, I don't know how you made it.

• 32:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm too old for Sesame Street.

• 32:56Heather Berlin?

  Okay.

• 32:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  My sister watched it.

• 32:59Heather Berlin?

  You know, but okay, so Chuck, Sesame. But what about Sesame Street? You know, when you're watching Sesame Street, were you not feeling that maybe Oscar was a real character, or Big Bird was a real Kermit the Frog? Or were you thinking, oh, that's just a puppet, there's some guy's hand controlling it?

• 33:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, when I got older, I got better at that. And in fact, was it Kermit? I was on stage once.

• 33:20Heather Berlin?

  You met Kermit the Frog?

• 33:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think I met Kermit the Frog onstage. And while there, I totally blocked out the fact that there's a human being there with his hand and a stick. And I was having, it was just me and Kermit. And I think we were doing good. The same thing is- God, I want to meet Kermit the Frog.

• 33:40Heather Berlin?

  You're so lucky.

• 33:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just so I can say-

• 33:41Chuck Nice?

  But you think it's hard being green?

• 33:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It ain't easy being green, okay?

• 33:46Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you think that's not easy?

• 33:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Try being black.

• 33:53Chuck Nice?

  There you go, you got it, you got it.

• 33:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But Chuck, it was allegory. Chuck, you know it was allegory. Okay? Okay?

• 34:05Heather Berlin?

  Um, the same thing is happening with these robots, these companions that they're creating now, right? So, you know, that you're interacting with, like they're your pet or they're becoming, you know, we're anthropomorphizing these, these robots. So the closer they can act and look and sound and have facial expressions like a human, you're gonna forget that it's a robot and interact with it in that way. So it's the same thing, whether you're watching a film, interacting with an AI. The, the more realistic it is, the easier it is for you to forget that it's not reality.

• 34:38Chuck Nice?

  Now, how much of that has to do with the, your association from an early age? Like, I don't care how realistic you make a robot pet for me to, I'm just, it's never gonna be a pet. It's gonna be a robot to me. But I have a feeling that if you gave my eight-year-old daughter a robot pet, anything, dog, cat, whatever, as she got older and became more, how can I say, familiar with that as a, as an actual thing, when she, you know, it would just be nothing to have a robot pet.

• 35:14Heather Berlin?

  Well, I think it's just a matter of what can fool you. I'm sure when you were a kid, whatever thing, I don't know, they had like a Teddy Ruxpin or whatever they had then at that point, maybe was able to fool you, you know.

• 35:27Chuck Nice?

  I remember Teddy Ruxpin and I hated it.

• 35:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, Chuck, I think you're asking something different, I think. It's one thing to say, I have this robot pet and I'm perfectly happy with it. It's another thing to have a robot pet and you think it's no longer a robot. So I think your daughter is not going to think the robot is ever real, but she'll be perfectly content with a robot pet, just as an evolution of pets. I have a robot pet and nothing.

• 35:51Chuck Nice?

  So it really isn't about your belief that.

• 35:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think it has to be.

• 35:55Chuck Nice?

  Your belief that, it's your belief that it's a pet.

• 35:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, that's all.

• 35:58Chuck Nice?

  Not that it's real.

• 35:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Correct.

• 36:00Chuck Nice?

  Or, yeah, or that it's.

• 36:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a real robot, just like a real mouse or a real hamster.

• 36:05Heather Berlin?

  The real question that, the deeper question, I think, is whether this thing has consciousness or not. And so when we start talking to, like the Alexa, I mean, we start, my kids talk to the Alexa like it's a person that has a conscious brain.

• 36:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There was a movie about that, yes.

• 36:19Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 36:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes.

• 36:21Heather Berlin?

  And they ask her questions, like, oh, well, she'll know, like, she knows everything. And, no, and it's very hard to explain to a child, well, this is not, this is just a, an algorithm. It's not an actual.

• 36:31Chuck Nice?

  You're talking to code.

• 36:32Heather Berlin?

  Conscious person. But, yeah, but they get confused. And so it has to do with earlier stages of development as well.

• 36:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But why does it matter? Why does it matter?

• 36:39Heather Berlin?

  It matters, I think, ethically.

• 36:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a philosophical question, really. Why does it matter? If I can't tell the difference, then who cares?

• 36:46Heather Berlin?

  I'll tell you why.

• 36:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alexa's my friend.

• 36:48Heather Berlin?

  Because if, if.

• 36:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, tell me why after the break, then.

• 36:51Heather Berlin?

  Suspense, suspense.

• 36:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You see what I did there? Suspense, I'm trying to do a Hitchcock thing here. When we come back, we're going to find out, does it matter if you know in advance something is real or fake? If it serves your needs and if it makes you happy, then what do you care if it's a robot or a human being? When we come back, StarTalk, your brain on movies.

• 37:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk, third and final segment of Your Brain on Movies. We're doing cosmic queries here, and we left off with a thought. I was challenging Heather with the thought that if your kids have Alexa, and they think Alexa's real, but even if they don't think Alexa's real, Alexa knows more than any other human. So why does it matter to you whether they think Alexa's real or not? What difference does it make?

• 37:55Heather Berlin?

  So here's where I see...

• 37:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is their friend on the other side of a box.

• 37:59Heather Berlin?

  Here's the differentiation. I think that it matters, well, it matters if it's real or not, because it's how we treat it. So for example, if your refrigerator is not conscious, it's okay to kick it, or smash it, or unplug it, for Alexa, for example. But if you think it really has feelings, and then you do things to it, that, you know, smash it, shut it down, you know, that has ethical, there are more ethical considerations to that. So how you treat the thing, it matters. So I mean, this is a case in which, you know, what, does it matter whether a child believes it's conscious or not? Well, yeah, because if it believes it's conscious, and then it, you know, says, "I hate you, Alexa," and it starts smashing it,

• 38:44Heather Berlin?

  it's a different scenario than if it doesn't believe...

• 38:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Look out, Mom.

• 38:47Heather Berlin?

  You know, then you know you have a psychopath on your hands, right?

• 38:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 38:51Heather Berlin?

  So how we treat these objects, whether they're conscious or whether they actually have subjective experience or not, matters. But it also matters in what we believe, because that tells us about that person. If a person is negative to something they believe is conscious, then we have to say this person might have some psychopathic tendencies. So there are some reasons, yeah.

• 39:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got it. Got it. Good answer. Good answer there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, Chuck, keep it going. This is our last segment.

• 39:17Chuck Nice?

  Alexa, you're safe for another day.

• 39:21Chuck Nice?

  This is Alejandro Reynoso from Monterrey, Mexico. He says hello, or should I say hola?

• 39:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hola.

• 39:37Chuck Nice?

  And I'm gonna, I'm gonna read this in the way I think Alejandro sounds.

• 39:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you know what that man sounds?

• 39:43Chuck Nice?

  Please, tell me.

• 39:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stop.

• 39:48Chuck Nice?

  Alejandro, tell me more. Which is the best representation you have ever seen of mental illness in a movie or a series? And by that, I mean, the closest to reality. Ooh, Alejandro.

• 40:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so Heather, what do you have there?

• 40:03Heather Berlin?

  There's so many. Well, one of the, just one of the caveats is that, and when it's not done right, they show mental illness as just being this like, stable thing, this trait. Once you have it, you're this person. But a lot of the time, mental illness, the severity can ebb and flow throughout a lifetime. So you might have OCD, you might have a really bad episode, then you get better for a while, then it's bad again. So, so some of the films that do it well, certainly A Beautiful Mind, portrayal of John Nash, because it, the films where they allow you to actually get inside the head of somebody who's experiencing mental illness to feel what it might feel like. Birdman, that was with Michael Keaton, which was another one, where they take you into his mind and you're almost there with them and see what this might experience, what it might feel like

• 40:46Heather Berlin?

  to have hallucinations and delusions and how you can easily slip from reality into these, these, these delusions.

• 40:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and was it The Grandfather, the recent film that came out during COVID?

• 40:56Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, with Alzheimer's, was that?

• 40:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With Alzheimer's, and I think its twist on a typical story was that, that he sees, is it his wife? Someone comes in twice, but he doesn't recognize her as his wife, but it's played by a completely different actress.

• 41:14Heather Berlin?

  Uh, I haven't seen this.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you-

• 41:16Heather Berlin?

  You experienced what he-

• 41:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Brilliant. You are now in this man's head. You are, and it's, who are you? I don't, get out of here, I don't know who you are. Right.

• 41:25Heather Berlin?

  The other memento was a film from a while back about memory, memory issues, and you're trying to experience it the way he's experiencing it. You don't know what's happening either, you're kind of lost and-

• 41:35Chuck Nice?

  Isn't that a real condition, by the way? That where you just, you have, but you do have long-term memory, but you have zero short-term memory, right?

• 41:45Heather Berlin?

  It's called like a dissociative fugue. It's when you go into these fugue states where you just forget completely who you are and where you're from. And yeah, so that is, that, so some of those films which drag you in, Pi, which was another one, that was a Darren Aronofsky film from a while back. So those films that bring you in, even The Shining, you know, where you're.

• 42:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pi, you mean The Life of Pi?

• 42:08Heather Berlin?

  No, no, no, there was a film, I think it was in the 1990s called Pi.

• 42:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just called Pi?

• 42:14Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, yeah. And it was a Darren Aronofsky film.

• 42:16Chuck Nice?

  The sequel, Apple Pie, and then there was another sequel.

• 42:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I don't think that, I don't think those are real sequels.

• 42:25Chuck Nice?

  I never heard of Pi, I'm sorry.

• 42:28Heather Berlin?

  There's so many, so those films that really bring you in, but other ones, you know, that like dissociative identity disorder or split personality disorder, Black Swan, Natalie Portman, I think she got an Oscar for, for playing that role. Where it was actually her, it was two actresses. It was her and Mila Kunis.

• 42:45Chuck Nice?

  Mila.

• 42:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mila Kunis, Mila Kunis.

• 42:47Heather Berlin?

  She played this other character the whole time. You think it's two different characters or Fight Club, same thing. You think it's two different characters, but you're really, it's this one, you know, Brad Pitt.

• 42:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mila Kunis is the voice of Meg on Family Guy.

• 42:58Heather Berlin?

  Well, then it's a, it's a perfect circle. It's a perfect, it all makes sense.

• 43:05Heather Berlin?

  One I, that I always cite in my classes for an example, borderline personality disorder is Glenn Close and Fatal Attraction. It's a movie from the eighties and it's such a, it's an extreme portrayal, but of borderline personality disorder. Also, Girl Interrupted is another good one. There's so many, so many.

• 43:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I know Girl Interrupted, that one was good.

• 43:25Heather Berlin?

  That was Angelina Jolie.

• 43:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that had an early, Angelina Jolie was in that. But not as the star, she was a side, a side character.

• 43:31Heather Berlin?

  Nona Ryder.

• 43:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you sure? Did you get your two movies right? I thought Fatal Attraction had the other woman in it. There were two similar movies.

• 43:41Chuck Nice?

  Glenn Close.

• 43:41Heather Berlin?

  It was Glenn Close.

• 43:42Chuck Nice?

  In Fatal Attraction.

• 43:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you sure about that? Okay, then there's another movie with, what's her name? Where she crosses her legs in front of the interview camera.

• 43:51Heather Berlin?

  Oh, Sharon Stone, that's Basic.

• 43:53Chuck Nice?

  Sharon Stone.

• 43:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sharon Stone. That was another one of those. Basic Instinct. Weren't they like the same movie, basically?

• 43:59Heather Berlin?

  Hmm, different. They were different. But.

• 44:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was polite of you there.

• 44:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're the same, but different, right? Okay.

• 44:09Heather Berlin?

  I mean, yeah.

• 44:12Heather Berlin?

  Silver Linings Playbook is a more recent one that was portraying bipolar. It was with Bradley Cooper and.

• 44:19Chuck Nice?

  Bradley Cooper and Katniss Everdeen. It was Bradley Cooper and Katniss Everdeen.

• 44:26Heather Berlin?

  Katniss Everdeen, who is amazing.

• 44:28Chuck Nice?

  Whatever her real name is. Jennifer something.

• 44:30Heather Berlin?

  Lawrence, Jennifer Lawrence.

• 44:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jennifer Lawrence, yes.

• 44:32Heather Berlin?

  Yeah. So these are all.

• 44:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So which one of these are the best, would you say?

• 44:36Heather Berlin?

  The best what? portrayal of mental illness?

• 44:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. What'd you say?

• 44:41Heather Berlin?

  You want me to pick one? Um, that's too difficult. I really, I really like.

• 44:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll pick one.

• 44:48Heather Berlin?

  Okay.

• 44:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll pick one. I just read Flowers for Algernon, and I went out and saw the movie Charlie with Cliff Robertson. And I was very moved by that. Where he's mentally disabled and they have a test serum that they give him where he becomes really smart. And you slowly watch him get smarter and smarter and smarter. And then he gets smarter than all of the friends who used to make fun of him for how non-smart he was. And then they no longer want to be his friend. And then the serum wears off and then he goes back to the way he was. Oh, my gosh. And it was very, and he won an Academy Award for that, I'm pretty sure.

• 45:22Heather Berlin?

  Wow. That sounds.

• 45:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Charlie. It's basically based on the Flowers for Algernon story.

• 45:27Heather Berlin?

  Okay. I'll tell you one really good one that portrays addiction is Requiem for a Dream. It's really disturbing. But it portrays addiction very, very well. You know, there's so many good films. I might have to, yeah, it's too difficult. Wonderful over the.

• 45:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But getting back to your earlier point, the better ones would get you inside your head.

• 45:47Heather Berlin?

  Well, a beautiful mind.

• 45:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Completely empathize.

• 45:49Heather Berlin?

  Mind stands out to me because you really, I always, you know, I've worked with patients with schizophrenia and I could never understand like, how did they? And that sort of allowed me to have insight into what it might feel like to be an intelligent, otherwise, you know, functioning person, but be plagued by these, these delusions and how easily you can slip into them. And so that for me was really a moving film.

• 46:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so slip in a couple of fast ones, go.

• 46:12Chuck Nice?

  Michael, Michael Boyver, who says, hey, guys, it's Michael Bo from Canada here in Shutter Island. The main character thinks he's a hero investigating a case of psychiatric hospital. At the end, we figure out he was the killer and the psychiatrist made up the story to set up his therapy. My question, can you really convince and hold someone into a living, happy dream for their entire life? Oh. From that standpoint of a mourning family, would a person that has no self-awareness to be put in jail be a fair thing to do if he's living peacefully in a dream and will

• 46:55Chuck Nice?

  never regret or know his actions? Dude, you just got super deep with, damn. Wow. I mean, well, here's the first thing, let's answer the first question. Would that be acceptable therapy to put somebody inside of their own living dream? In other words, to massage their delusion to the point where they are living that delusion?

• 47:16Heather Berlin?

  Well, I mean, I don't think that would be legal. Um, I don't think, you know.

• 47:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, you're ridding them of their accountability for their wrongdoings.

• 47:25Heather Berlin?

  Yeah, I mean, there's so many, there's so many levels there. I mean, this is the thing, if you don't know of anything else, then that whatever you're living in is, is your reality, right?

• 47:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, it's the matrix.

• 47:35Heather Berlin?

  It's the matrix. And it goes for, you know, I've seen this with, you know, in unfortunate cases with. Children who have been in like abusive situations at home and they think that that's normal, that's all they know. So they're not even that sometimes aren't as upset about it until they see what else alternative exists. You don't know what you're, you don't, you can't, you need a comparison, right? So if you were in your whole life, living in a delusional, you know, simulated world, you would never know the difference. But until, it's just like, yeah, it's just like living in the matrix. Would that be a suitable, I'm a little confused because I haven't seen the movie, treatment. But, you know, that's what they did to, I think it was in Minority Report, when they jailed people, they just

• 48:19Heather Berlin?

  like stick you in this thing and put a thing on your head. And I think then you're just living in a kind of virtual reality world or something for, that's your imprisonment.

• 48:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, you're suspended there.

• 48:29Heather Berlin?

  Yeah.

• 48:30Chuck Nice?

  Basically a dream, basically.

• 48:31Heather Berlin?

  Exactly, exactly. They lock you like in, but what I love in terms of therapy, one of the films also that I love is Inception, because they're in their dream, it's actually how things work. They go back deep into the unconscious and they plant a seed. And that seed then germinates and changes ultimately the character's behavior that they're trying to, you know, change. And so the idea of actually getting into someone's unconscious and planting a little, a little bit of information, a little seed, and letting them.

• 48:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they make a life-changing decision that's better for them or different later on.

• 49:02Heather Berlin?

  And that, that's what therapy, a lot of therapy is. You just sort of say, oh, what about this? Have you ever thought about it this way? And then you just let them create their own and then change their behavior on their own.

• 49:11Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 49:12Heather Berlin?

  Look at that. All right.

• 49:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck, one more question. It's gotta be fast, gotta be fast.

• 49:16Chuck Nice?

  And this is a great one. This is Lydia, and she says, hello to all. My friend Naomi, who is doing her masters in neuroscience, is wondering if movies could be a very good treatment for depressed people. Also, if movies could give a good amount of dopamine, just like getting rewards. My kind regards, Lydia.

• 49:40Heather Berlin?

  Oh.

• 49:42Chuck Nice?

  And we answer back, dearest Lydia. No, okay, go ahead.

• 49:46Heather Berlin?

  My dearest Lydia, thank you for your letter. I, I, I think yes. So, so humor is really something that does release dopamine in the brain and.

• 49:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck doesn't know anything about humor.

• 50:01Heather Berlin?

  Let me tell you a little bit about humor Chuck. Um, it no, it releases dopamine in the brain and, and, and it can be a very useful, you know, first of all, it's a useful defense mechanism. Sometimes when people are in pain, they use humor to deflect, but, but it's one of the positive defense mechanisms. So, um, but, but getting in, losing yourself into another person's story is a good way. It's, it's a form of like healthy dissociation in a way. So if you're ruminating over your problems and you just can't get out of your own head, if you can get engrossed in a film that's maybe with, you know, positive theme and

• 50:44Heather Berlin?

  something, you know, that's happy or funny, it, it can actually help change your brain in a way. And not, you know, if you're in a very deep, deep depression, it's a neurochemical imbalance, maybe not so much, but if you're just feeling a little bit down, you know, if you, and I'm sure we've all had that experience of you watch something that moves you and it shifts, it shifts how you're feeling, you know, for the rest of the day.

• 51:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but okay, but Heather, if I'm depressed, do I benefit from seeing people who are more depressed than I am? And I say, I guess I don't have it that bad. Or do I see people who are happy and then I aspire to that? I mean, it seems like you can argue it both ways, right?

• 51:18Heather Berlin?

  It's a very good question. I mean, studies show, so there's, there's this thing, it's called upward comparison and downward comparison. And so they find that people are happier in general when they compare down. So they say, uh, you know, look at people who are worse off than them. And then they feel better. So if you're, if you're having a problem in your life right now, you say, but wait, look at those people in the Ukraine right now, like they're really suffering. So put your problems in perspective, you'll feel a little bit better about your life. But if you're comparing yourself to, I don't know, Richard Branson or somebody who has their own island and yacht and, you know, you might feel a little bit bad about your current position in life. So, so in general.

• 51:53Chuck Nice?

  Which makes him the saddest man in the world. Because even though he's worth more money than anybody, you look at him and go, I don't want to be that a-hole.

• 52:03Heather Berlin?

  But his ex-wife, on the other hand, she's someone I'd like to be, um, but.

• 52:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So black, black people have a famously low suicide rate relative to white people. And Red Fox once remarked about that. He said, it's hard to kill yourself jumping out of a basement window.

• 52:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's hilarious. Guys, we gotta land this plane. Heather, thanks for giving us some insights here. It's all valuable, and this is an unending subject. We're gonna have to do this again. Because I'm sure we didn't get through all the questions, Chuck. So we will have to do this again. It'll have to be "Your Brain on Movies: The Sequel." How's that?

• 52:40Chuck Nice?

  Nicely done, sir.

• 52:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You see how I played that?

• 52:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. Chuck Nice, co-host. Heather Berlin, our favorite neuroscientist. Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. Keep looking up.