23 | Lisa Aziz-Zadeh on Embodied Cognition, Mirror Neurons, and Empathy

23 | Lisa Aziz-Zadeh on Embodied Cognition, Mirror Neurons, and Empathy

Brains are important things; they're where thinking happens. Or are they? The theory of "embodied cognition" posits that it's better to think of thinking as something that takes place in the body as a whole, not just in the cells of the brain. In some sense this is trivially true; our brains interact with the rest of our bodies, taking in signals and giving back instructions. But it seems bold to situate important elements of cognition itself in the actual non-brain parts of the body. Lisa Aziz-Zadeh is a psychologist and neuroscientist who uses imaging technologies to study how different parts of the brain and body are involved in different cognitive tasks. We talk a lot about mirror neurons, those brain cells that light up both when we perform an action ourselves and when we see someone else performing the action. Understanding how these cells work could be key to a better view of empathy and interpersonal interactions. Lisa Aziz-Zadeh is an Associate Professor in the Brain and Creativity Institute and the Department of Occupational Science at the University of Southern California. She received her Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA, and has also done research at the University of Parma and the University of California, Berkeley. Home page USC profile Lab home page Google Scholar Talk on Brain and Body

Jaksot(415)

345 | Adam Elga on Being Rational in a Very Large Universe

345 | Adam Elga on Being Rational in a Very Large Universe

Behaving rationally involves facing up to conditions of uncertainty; we never navigate the world with perfect confidence. Sometimes we are uncertain about the way the world is, but we can also be unce...

23 Helmi 1h 34min

344 | Adam Gurri on Liberal Democracy and How to Fight For It

344 | Adam Gurri on Liberal Democracy and How to Fight For It

It's possible to look at the course of history over the past few centuries and discern a movement toward increasing democracy, freedom, and individual rights -- "liberalism," in the political-philosop...

16 Helmi 1h 21min

343 | Tom Griffiths on The Laws of Thought

343 | Tom Griffiths on The Laws of Thought

For all that human beings spend a lot of their time thinking, it's far from obvious what that process actually entails. Part of it amounts to classical logical reasoning. But an even bigger part invol...

9 Helmi 1h 19min

AMA | Feb 2026

AMA | Feb 2026

Welcome to the February 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Pa...

2 Helmi 3h 10min

342 | Rachell Powell on Evolutionary Convergence, Morality, and Mind

342 | Rachell Powell on Evolutionary Convergence, Morality, and Mind

Evolution with natural selection involves an intricate mix of the random and the driven. Mutations are essentially random, while selection pressures work to prefer certain outcomes over others. There ...

26 Tammi 1h 37min

341 | Stewart Brand on Maintenance as an Organizing Principle

341 | Stewart Brand on Maintenance as an Organizing Principle

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold," wrote W.B. Yeats. I don't know about the centre, but the tendency of things to fall apart is pretty universal, ultimately due to the Second Law of Thermody...

19 Tammi 1h 12min

340 | Rebecca Newberger Goldstein on What Matters and Why It Matters

340 | Rebecca Newberger Goldstein on What Matters and Why It Matters

At any given moment, an uncountable number of events are happening, but only some of them matter to us. What does it mean for something to matter, and more importantly, what does it mean for us to mat...

12 Tammi 1h 18min

339 | Ned Block on Whether Consciousness Requires Biology

339 | Ned Block on Whether Consciousness Requires Biology

It's become increasingly clear that the Turing Test -- determining whether human interlocutors can tell whether a conversation is being carried out by a human or a machine -- is not a good way to thin...

5 Tammi 1h 11min

Suosittua kategoriassa Tiede

tiedekulma-podcast
rss-poliisin-mieli
rss-mita-tulisi-tietaa
docemilia
rss-duodecim-lehti
rss-luontopodi-samuel-glassar-tutkii-luonnon-ihmeita
utelias-mieli
radio-antro
rss-astetta-parempi-elama-podcast
rss-lapsuuden-rakentajat-podcast
rss-lihavuudesta-podcast
rss-sosiopodi