WEBVTT 00:00:00.806 --> 00:00:02.881 Imagine that you invented a device 00:00:02.905 --> 00:00:04.577 that can record my memories, 00:00:04.601 --> 00:00:06.638 my dreams, my ideas, 00:00:06.662 --> 00:00:08.325 and transmit them to your brain. 00:00:08.755 --> 00:00:11.830 That would be a game-changing technology, right? 00:00:11.854 --> 00:00:14.892 But in fact, we already possess this device, 00:00:14.916 --> 00:00:17.560 and it's called human communication system 00:00:17.584 --> 00:00:19.432 and effective storytelling. 00:00:19.874 --> 00:00:22.334 To understand how this device works, 00:00:22.358 --> 00:00:24.773 we have to look into our brains. 00:00:24.797 --> 00:00:28.383 And we have to formulate the question in a slightly different manner. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:28.407 --> 00:00:29.870 Now we have to ask 00:00:30.309 --> 00:00:32.925 how these neuron patterns in my brain 00:00:32.949 --> 00:00:36.151 that are associated with my memories and ideas 00:00:36.175 --> 00:00:38.694 are transmitted into your brains. 00:00:39.702 --> 00:00:43.070 And we think there are two factors that enable us to communicate. 00:00:43.094 --> 00:00:47.149 First, your brain is now physically coupled to the sound wave 00:00:47.173 --> 00:00:49.648 that I'm transmitting to your brain. 00:00:49.672 --> 00:00:53.050 And second, we developed a common neural protocol 00:00:53.074 --> 00:00:54.832 that enabled us to communicate. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:55.459 --> 00:00:56.721 So how do we know that? 00:00:57.292 --> 00:00:59.185 In my lab in Princeton, 00:00:59.209 --> 00:01:02.714 we bring people to the fMRI scanner and we scan their brains 00:01:02.738 --> 00:01:06.638 while they are either telling or listening to real-life stories. 00:01:06.662 --> 00:01:09.286 And to give you a sense of the stimulus we are using, 00:01:09.310 --> 00:01:13.294 let me play 20 seconds from a story that we used, 00:01:13.318 --> 00:01:15.642 told by a very talented storyteller, 00:01:15.666 --> 00:01:16.817 Jim O'Grady. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:18.244 --> 00:01:21.577 (Audio) Jim O'Grady: So I'm banging out my story and I know it's good, 00:01:21.601 --> 00:01:23.891 and then I start to make it better -- NOTE Paragraph 00:01:23.915 --> 00:01:26.399 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:01:26.423 --> 00:01:28.758 by adding an element of embellishment. 00:01:29.502 --> 00:01:32.810 Reporters call this "making shit up." NOTE Paragraph 00:01:32.834 --> 00:01:35.105 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:01:35.735 --> 00:01:38.851 And they recommend against crossing that line. 00:01:40.208 --> 00:01:44.812 But I had just seen the line crossed between a high-powered dean 00:01:44.836 --> 00:01:46.262 and assault with a pastry. 00:01:46.286 --> 00:01:47.778 And I kinda liked it." NOTE Paragraph 00:01:47.802 --> 00:01:50.176 Uri Hasson: OK, so now let's look into your brain 00:01:50.200 --> 00:01:53.428 and see what's happening when you listen to these kinds of stories. 00:01:53.452 --> 00:01:57.496 And let's start simple -- let's start with one listener and one brain area: 00:01:57.520 --> 00:02:01.009 the auditory cortex that processes the sounds that come from the ear. 00:02:01.033 --> 00:02:03.477 And as you can see, in this particular brain area, 00:02:03.501 --> 00:02:06.993 the responses are going up and down as the story is unfolding. 00:02:07.017 --> 00:02:08.610 Now we can take these responses 00:02:08.634 --> 00:02:11.435 and compare them to the responses in other listeners 00:02:11.459 --> 00:02:12.934 in the same brain area. 00:02:12.958 --> 00:02:14.125 And we can ask: 00:02:14.149 --> 00:02:17.384 How similar are the responses across all listeners? NOTE Paragraph 00:02:18.018 --> 00:02:20.380 So here you can see five listeners. 00:02:20.983 --> 00:02:24.436 And we start to scan their brains before the story starts, 00:02:24.460 --> 00:02:27.999 when they're simply lying in the dark and waiting for the story to begin. 00:02:28.023 --> 00:02:29.177 As you can see, 00:02:29.201 --> 00:02:31.959 the brain area is going up and down in each one of them, 00:02:31.983 --> 00:02:33.758 but the responses are very different, 00:02:33.782 --> 00:02:35.449 and not in sync. 00:02:35.473 --> 00:02:38.179 However, immediately as the story is starting, 00:02:38.203 --> 00:02:39.889 something amazing is happening. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:40.857 --> 00:02:43.786 (Audio) JO: So I'm banging out my story and I know it's good, 00:02:43.810 --> 00:02:45.338 and then I start to make it -- NOTE Paragraph 00:02:45.362 --> 00:02:48.659 UH: Suddenly, you can see that the responses in all of the subjects 00:02:48.683 --> 00:02:49.835 lock to the story, 00:02:49.859 --> 00:02:53.288 and now they are going up and down in a very similar way 00:02:53.312 --> 00:02:54.866 across all listeners. 00:02:54.890 --> 00:02:57.939 And in fact, this is exactly what is happening now in your brains 00:02:57.963 --> 00:03:00.836 when you listen to my sound speaking. 00:03:00.860 --> 00:03:03.868 We call this effect "neural entrainment." 00:03:04.374 --> 00:03:06.686 And to explain to you what is neural entrainment, 00:03:06.710 --> 00:03:09.320 let me first explain what is physical entrainment. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:10.076 --> 00:03:12.826 So, we'll look and see five metronomes. 00:03:12.850 --> 00:03:15.846 Think of these five metronomes as five brains. 00:03:15.870 --> 00:03:18.620 And similar to the listeners before the story starts, 00:03:18.644 --> 00:03:20.457 these metronomes are going to click, 00:03:20.481 --> 00:03:22.640 but they're going to click out of phase. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:23.059 --> 00:03:27.455 (Clicking) NOTE Paragraph 00:03:27.479 --> 00:03:30.480 Now see what will happen when I connect them together 00:03:30.504 --> 00:03:32.645 by pressing them on these two cylinders. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:33.880 --> 00:03:37.101 (Clicking) NOTE Paragraph 00:03:37.125 --> 00:03:39.737 Now these two cylinders start to rotate. 00:03:39.761 --> 00:03:42.890 This rotation vibration is going through the wood 00:03:42.914 --> 00:03:45.919 and is going to couple all the metronomes together. 00:03:45.943 --> 00:03:47.555 And now listen to the click. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:47.579 --> 00:03:52.246 (Synchronized clicking) NOTE Paragraph 00:03:57.834 --> 00:04:00.458 This is what you call physical entrainment. 00:04:00.482 --> 00:04:02.725 Now let's go back to the brain and ask: 00:04:02.749 --> 00:04:04.893 What's driving this neural entrainment? 00:04:04.917 --> 00:04:07.702 Is it simply the sounds that the speaker is producing? 00:04:07.726 --> 00:04:09.049 Or maybe it's the words. 00:04:09.073 --> 00:04:12.719 Or maybe it's the meaning that the speaker is trying to convey. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:12.743 --> 00:04:15.503 So to test it, we did the following experiment. 00:04:15.527 --> 00:04:18.728 First, we took the story and played it backwards. 00:04:18.752 --> 00:04:21.878 And that preserved many of the original auditory features, 00:04:21.902 --> 00:04:23.915 but removed the meaning. 00:04:23.939 --> 00:04:25.610 And it sounds something like that. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:25.634 --> 00:04:30.772 (Audio) JO: (unintelligible) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:31.296 --> 00:04:33.648 And we flashed colors in the two brains 00:04:33.672 --> 00:04:37.584 to indicate brain areas that respond very similarly across people. 00:04:37.608 --> 00:04:38.762 And as you can see, 00:04:38.786 --> 00:04:42.554 this incoming sound induced entrainment or alignment in all of the brains 00:04:42.578 --> 00:04:45.310 in auditory cortices that process the sounds, 00:04:45.334 --> 00:04:47.558 but it didn't spread deeper into the brain. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:48.051 --> 00:04:51.455 Now we can take these sounds and build words out of it. 00:04:51.479 --> 00:04:54.135 So if we take Jim O'Grady and scramble the words, 00:04:54.159 --> 00:04:55.399 we'll get a list of words. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:55.423 --> 00:04:57.685 (Audio) JO: ... an animal ... assorted facts ... 00:04:57.709 --> 00:05:00.601 and right on ... pie man ... potentially ... my stories NOTE Paragraph 00:05:00.625 --> 00:05:03.567 UH: And you can see that these words start to induce alignment 00:05:03.591 --> 00:05:06.196 in early language areas, but not more than that. 00:05:06.220 --> 00:05:10.037 Now we can take the words and start to build sentences out of them. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:11.561 --> 00:05:14.561 (Audio) JO: And they recommend against crossing that line. 00:05:16.021 --> 00:05:19.663 He says: "Dear Jim, Good story. Nice details. 00:05:20.369 --> 00:05:22.521 Didn't she only know about him through me?" NOTE Paragraph 00:05:22.545 --> 00:05:25.680 UH: Now you can see that the responses in all the language areas 00:05:25.704 --> 00:05:27.395 that process the incoming language 00:05:27.419 --> 00:05:29.798 become aligned or similar across all listeners. 00:05:30.218 --> 00:05:34.895 However, only when we use the full, engaging, coherent story 00:05:34.919 --> 00:05:37.144 do the responses spread deeper into the brain 00:05:37.168 --> 00:05:38.699 into higher-order areas, 00:05:38.723 --> 00:05:41.824 which include the frontal cortex and the parietal cortex, 00:05:41.848 --> 00:05:44.436 and make all of them respond very similarly. 00:05:44.460 --> 00:05:47.729 And we believe that these responses in higher-order areas are induced 00:05:47.753 --> 00:05:49.879 or become similar across listeners 00:05:49.903 --> 00:05:52.643 because of the meaning conveyed by the speaker, 00:05:52.667 --> 00:05:54.268 and not by words or sound. 00:05:54.735 --> 00:05:57.350 And if we are right, there's a strong prediction of??? 00:05:57.374 --> 00:05:59.736 if I tell you the exact same ideas 00:05:59.760 --> 00:06:02.404 using two very different sets of words, 00:06:02.428 --> 00:06:04.979 your brain responses will still be similar. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:05.499 --> 00:06:08.513 And to test it, we did the following experiment in my lab. 00:06:09.142 --> 00:06:10.950 We took the English story 00:06:10.974 --> 00:06:13.110 and translated it to Russian. 00:06:13.134 --> 00:06:17.358 Now you have two different sounds and linguistic systems 00:06:17.382 --> 00:06:19.676 that convey the exact same meaning. 00:06:19.700 --> 00:06:23.348 And you play the English story to the English listeners 00:06:23.372 --> 00:06:25.724 and the Russian story to the Russian listeners, 00:06:25.748 --> 00:06:28.793 and we can compare their responses across the groups. 00:06:28.817 --> 00:06:32.388 And when we did that, we didn't see responses that are similar 00:06:32.412 --> 00:06:34.693 in auditory cortices in language, 00:06:34.717 --> 00:06:37.095 because the language and sound are very different. 00:06:37.119 --> 00:06:39.677 However, you can see that the responses in other areas 00:06:39.701 --> 00:06:42.195 were still similar across these two groups. 00:06:43.068 --> 00:06:47.160 We believe this is because they understood the story in a very similar way, 00:06:47.184 --> 00:06:51.210 as we confirmed, using a test after the story ended. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:52.321 --> 00:06:56.008 And we think that this alignment is necessary for communication. 00:06:56.032 --> 00:06:58.658 For example, as you can tell, 00:06:58.682 --> 00:07:00.709 I am not a native English speaker. 00:07:00.733 --> 00:07:02.614 I grew up with another language, 00:07:02.638 --> 00:07:05.292 and the same might be for many of you in the audience. 00:07:05.316 --> 00:07:07.315 And still, we can communicate. 00:07:07.339 --> 00:07:08.490 How come? 00:07:08.514 --> 00:07:11.593 We think we can communicate because we have this common code 00:07:11.617 --> 00:07:13.044 that presents meaning. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:13.921 --> 00:07:17.367 So far, I've only talked about what's happening in the listener's brain, 00:07:17.391 --> 00:07:19.638 in your brain, when you're listening to talks. 00:07:19.662 --> 00:07:22.361 But what's happening in the speaker's brain, in my brain, 00:07:22.385 --> 00:07:24.192 when I'm speaking to you? 00:07:24.216 --> 00:07:26.073 To look in the speaker's brain, 00:07:26.097 --> 00:07:29.193 we asked the speaker to go into the scanner, 00:07:29.217 --> 00:07:30.819 we scan his brain, 00:07:30.843 --> 00:07:34.850 and then compare his brain responses to the brain responses of the listeners 00:07:34.874 --> 00:07:36.676 listening to the story. 00:07:36.700 --> 00:07:40.910 You have to remember that producing speech and comprehending speech 00:07:40.934 --> 00:07:42.657 are very different processes. 00:07:42.681 --> 00:07:44.925 Here we're asking: How similar are they? 00:07:46.164 --> 00:07:47.571 To our surprise, 00:07:47.595 --> 00:07:52.466 we saw that all these complex patterns within the listeners 00:07:52.490 --> 00:07:55.197 actually came from the speaker brain. 00:07:55.221 --> 00:07:58.906 So production and comprehension rely on very similar processes. 00:07:58.930 --> 00:08:00.502 And we also found 00:08:00.526 --> 00:08:04.232 the stronger the similarity between the listener's brain 00:08:04.256 --> 00:08:05.755 and the speaker's brain, 00:08:05.779 --> 00:08:07.684 the better the communication. 00:08:07.708 --> 00:08:11.673 So I know that if you are completely confused now, 00:08:11.697 --> 00:08:13.718 and I do hope that this is not the case, 00:08:13.742 --> 00:08:16.135 your brain responses are very different than mine. 00:08:16.159 --> 00:08:19.266 But I also know that if you really understand me now, 00:08:19.290 --> 00:08:22.181 then your brain ...and your brain ... and your brain 00:08:22.205 --> 00:08:23.933 are really similar to mine. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:25.793 --> 00:08:28.888 Now, let's take all this information together and ask: 00:08:28.912 --> 00:08:32.249 How can we use it to transmit a memory that I have 00:08:32.273 --> 00:08:34.459 from my brain to your brains? 00:08:35.037 --> 00:08:37.155 So we did the following experiment. 00:08:37.648 --> 00:08:40.221 We let people watch, for the first time in their life, 00:08:40.245 --> 00:08:44.379 a TV episode from the BBC series "Sherlock," while we scanned their brains. 00:08:44.403 --> 00:08:47.204 And then we asked them to go back to the scanner 00:08:47.228 --> 00:08:51.127 and tell the story to another person that never watched the movie. 00:08:51.151 --> 00:08:52.811 So let's be specific. 00:08:52.835 --> 00:08:54.882 Think about this exact scene, 00:08:54.906 --> 00:08:57.490 when Sherlock is entering the cab in London 00:08:57.514 --> 00:08:59.810 driven by the murderer he is looking for. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:00.398 --> 00:09:02.894 With me, as a viewer, 00:09:02.918 --> 00:09:06.418 there is a specific brain pattern in my brain when I watch it. 00:09:07.179 --> 00:09:10.951 Now, the exact same pattern, I can reactivate in my brain again 00:09:10.975 --> 00:09:14.631 by telling the world: Sherlock, London, murderer. 00:09:15.369 --> 00:09:18.479 And when I'm transmitting these words to your brains now, 00:09:18.503 --> 00:09:20.988 you have to reconstruct it in your mind. 00:09:21.012 --> 00:09:25.561 In fact, we see that pattern emerging now in your brains. 00:09:25.585 --> 00:09:28.100 And we were really surprised to see 00:09:28.124 --> 00:09:30.379 that the pattern you have now in your brains 00:09:30.403 --> 00:09:32.315 when I'm describing to you these scenes 00:09:32.339 --> 00:09:36.161 would be very similar to the pattern I had when I watched this movie 00:09:36.185 --> 00:09:38.323 a few months ago in the scanner. 00:09:38.347 --> 00:09:40.451 This starts to tell you about the mechanism 00:09:40.475 --> 00:09:43.217 by which we can tell stories and transmit information. 00:09:43.733 --> 00:09:45.609 Because, for example, 00:09:45.633 --> 00:09:49.145 now you're listening really hard and trying to understand what I'm saying. 00:09:49.169 --> 00:09:50.719 And I know that it's not easy. 00:09:50.743 --> 00:09:54.779 But I hope that at one point in the talk we clicked, and you got me. 00:09:54.803 --> 00:09:58.701 And I think that in a few hours, a few days, a few months, 00:09:58.725 --> 00:10:00.869 you're going to meet someone at a party, 00:10:00.893 --> 00:10:04.441 and you're going to tell him about this lecture, 00:10:04.465 --> 00:10:08.103 and suddenly it will be as if he is standing now here with us. 00:10:08.127 --> 00:10:10.977 Now you can see how we can take this mechanism 00:10:11.001 --> 00:10:14.932 and try to transmit memories and knowledge across people, 00:10:14.956 --> 00:10:17.003 which is wonderful, right? NOTE Paragraph 00:10:17.027 --> 00:10:20.194 But our ability to communicate relies on our ability 00:10:20.218 --> 00:10:22.784 to have common ground. 00:10:22.808 --> 00:10:24.013 Because, for example, 00:10:24.037 --> 00:10:27.804 if I'm going to use the British synonym 00:10:27.828 --> 00:10:30.206 "hackney carriage" instead of "cab," 00:10:30.230 --> 00:10:34.269 I know that I'm going to be misaligned with most of you in the audience. 00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:36.911 This alignment depends not only on our ability 00:10:36.935 --> 00:10:38.969 to understand the basic concept; 00:10:38.993 --> 00:10:43.788 it also depends on our ability to develop common ground and understanding 00:10:43.812 --> 00:10:45.599 and shared belief systems. 00:10:45.623 --> 00:10:47.457 Because we know that in many cases, 00:10:47.481 --> 00:10:51.524 people understand the exact same story in very different ways. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:52.460 --> 00:10:55.501 So to test it in the lab, we did the following experiment. 00:10:56.089 --> 00:10:59.020 We took a story by J.D. Salinger, 00:10:59.044 --> 00:11:03.379 in which a husband lost track of his wife in the middle of a party, 00:11:03.403 --> 00:11:07.090 and he's calling his best friend, asking, "Did you see my wife?" 00:11:07.836 --> 00:11:09.043 For half of the subjects, 00:11:09.067 --> 00:11:13.208 we said that the wife was having an affair with the best friend. 00:11:13.232 --> 00:11:14.383 For the other half, 00:11:14.407 --> 00:11:19.512 we said that the wife is loyal and the husband is very jealous. 00:11:20.127 --> 00:11:22.815 This one sentence before the story started 00:11:22.839 --> 00:11:25.140 was enough to make the brain responses 00:11:25.164 --> 00:11:28.208 of all the people that believed the wife was having an affair 00:11:28.232 --> 00:11:30.669 be very similar in these high-order areas, 00:11:30.693 --> 00:11:32.915 and different than the other group. 00:11:32.939 --> 00:11:36.612 And if one sentence is enough to make your brain similar 00:11:36.636 --> 00:11:38.239 to people that think like you 00:11:38.263 --> 00:11:41.216 and very different than people that think differently than you, 00:11:41.240 --> 00:11:44.717 think how this effect is going to be amplified in real life, 00:11:44.741 --> 00:11:47.633 when we are all listening to the exact same news item 00:11:47.657 --> 00:11:51.405 after being exposed days after day after day 00:11:51.429 --> 00:11:55.241 to different media channels, like Fox News or The New York Times, 00:11:55.265 --> 00:11:58.378 that give us very different perspectives on reality. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:59.556 --> 00:12:00.909 So let me summarize. 00:12:01.529 --> 00:12:03.618 If everything worked as planned tonight, 00:12:03.642 --> 00:12:07.941 I used my ability to vocalize sound to be coupled to your brains. 00:12:07.965 --> 00:12:09.468 And I used this coupling 00:12:09.492 --> 00:12:13.333 to transmit my brain patterns associated with my memories and ideas 00:12:13.357 --> 00:12:14.673 into your brains. 00:12:15.201 --> 00:12:18.999 In this, I start to reveal the hidden neural mechanism 00:12:19.023 --> 00:12:20.658 by which we communicate. 00:12:20.682 --> 00:12:23.649 And we know that in the future it will enable us to improve 00:12:23.673 --> 00:12:25.663 and facilitate communication. 00:12:26.111 --> 00:12:27.805 But these studies also reveal 00:12:28.535 --> 00:12:31.821 that communication relies on a common ground. 00:12:31.845 --> 00:12:34.307 And we have to be really worried as a society 00:12:34.331 --> 00:12:38.367 if we lose this common ground and our ability to speak with people 00:12:38.391 --> 00:12:40.508 that are slightly different than us 00:12:40.532 --> 00:12:43.920 because we let a few very strong media channels 00:12:43.944 --> 00:12:45.485 take control of the mike, 00:12:45.509 --> 00:12:49.284 and manipulate and control the way we all think. 00:12:49.308 --> 00:12:52.209 And I'm not sure how to fix it, because I'm only a scientist. 00:12:52.233 --> 00:12:54.693 But maybe one way to do it 00:12:54.717 --> 00:12:57.364 is to go back to the more natural way of communication, 00:12:57.388 --> 00:12:58.990 which is a dialogue, 00:12:59.014 --> 00:13:01.521 in which it's not only me speaking to you now, 00:13:01.994 --> 00:13:04.210 but a more natural way of talking, 00:13:04.234 --> 00:13:07.511 in which I am speaking and I am listening, 00:13:07.535 --> 00:13:12.255 and together we are trying to come to a common ground and new ideas. 00:13:12.279 --> 00:13:13.437 Because after all, 00:13:13.461 --> 00:13:17.125 the people we are coupled to define who we are. 00:13:17.149 --> 00:13:19.538 And our desire to be coupled to another brain 00:13:19.562 --> 00:13:24.079 is something very basic that starts at a very early age. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:24.103 --> 00:13:28.290 So let me finish with an example from my own private life 00:13:29.044 --> 00:13:33.355 that I think is a good example of how coupling to other people 00:13:33.379 --> 00:13:35.653 is really going to define who we are. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:36.294 --> 00:13:39.368 This my son Jonathan at a very early age. 00:13:39.392 --> 00:13:43.542 See how he developed a vocal game together with my wife, 00:13:43.566 --> 00:13:48.797 only from the desire and pure joy of being coupled to another human being. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:49.556 --> 00:13:54.473 (Both vocalizing) NOTE Paragraph 00:14:02.915 --> 00:14:05.243 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:14:05.267 --> 00:14:09.064 Now, think how the ability of my son 00:14:09.088 --> 00:14:11.850 to be coupled to us and other people in his life 00:14:11.874 --> 00:14:14.732 is going to shape the man he is going to become. 00:14:14.756 --> 00:14:17.171 And think how you change on a daily basis 00:14:17.195 --> 00:14:21.518 from the interaction and coupling to other people in your life. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:22.562 --> 00:14:24.665 So keep being coupled to other people. 00:14:25.157 --> 00:14:26.706 Keep spreading your ideas, 00:14:26.730 --> 00:14:29.974 because the sum of all of us together, coupled, 00:14:29.998 --> 00:14:31.592 is greater than our parts. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:31.616 --> 00:14:32.782 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:32.806 --> 00:14:38.468 (Applause)