Episode 4 | How Willpower Is Like a Tank of Gas
An experiment where people have to watch distressing images reveals that the brain has a finite amount of willpower to draw on.
Episode 4 | The Stroop Test
The Stroop test allows you to feel the pull of rival networks competing with each other as you try to name a color.
Episode 4 | The Conflict Within
Every time you are faced with a decision, there is a storm of activity inside your brain as rival networks compete to win.
Episode 4 | The Trolley Dilemma
Experience the trolley dilemma and decide for yourself whether you would trade one life for four lives. Two trolley dilemmas involve very different systems in the brain.
Episode 4 | The Iowa Gambling Task
The Iowa Gambling Task is a way to witness a "gut" decision or a "hunch" as it forms unconsciously before a conscious decision is made.
How Do I Decide? | Preview
Explore how the brain navigates the myriad of conscious and unconscious decisions we make daily.
Episode 3 | What If We Have No Free Will?
What if we have no free will? What if we are just systems that move from one state to another in a predictable fashion? Using a tank of ping pong balls, David demonstrates why we don’t need to worry.
Episode 3 | Steered by the Unconscious
In this experiment men were asked to look at photographs of women’s faces and make judgments about them. They had no conscious awareness of what was influencing their answers.
Episode 3 | Ian Waterman’s Inspiring Story
Ian Waterman has lost the ability to control his body without exerting extraordinary conscious effort. Ian’s condition reminds us of the amazing reach of the unconscious brain.
Episode 3 | The Role of Consciousness
David describes some situations where the unconscious brain is making decisions on our behalf. So why are we conscious? David enlists the help of a man dressed as a bee to point out one of its important roles.
Episode 3 | Different People, Different Paths
Why are there differences between us? Why is it that we behave differently when faced with the same choices? A confluence of our genes and the environment we are born into send each of us off on very different life trajectories.
Episode 3 | David Takes on a World Champion
Austin Naber is a world-record holder in cup stacking. He practices 3-4 hours every day. How will David fare against him? EEG helmets capture the differences in their brain activity, and reveal a deeper truth about why so much of what the brain does is unconscious.
Who is in Control? | Preview
Explore the great deception that greets us each morning when we awake: it feels as though we are in conscious control of our lives but the truth is that we are not.
Episode 2 | Inside a Child's Brain
A typical 2-year-old is building 2 million new connections every second, but after the age of two this growth is halted, and a process of pruning begins. The process of becoming someone is about pruning back the brain’s connections.
Episode 2 | Your Job Can Reshape Your Brain
The brains of London taxi drivers were tracked before, during and after their training, and results showed that a part of their brain had grown. The adult brain isn’t fixed. Its networks can reconfigure themselves according to our experiences and our environment.
Episode 2 | Stuck in the Present
Henry Molaison couldn't form new memories. His case reveals something important about the brain’s ability to think into the future. Both the past, and the future are constructions of the same networks in the brain.
Episode 2 | Nuns and the Aging Brain
A study of nuns’ brains produces an unexpected revelation. A third of the brains tested at autopsy showed signs of Alzheimer’s but cognitive tests had revealed that the brain owners had shown no symptoms of this terrible disease. What was going on?
Episode 2 | Stressed Teens
An experiment in a shop window demonstrates why teens feel far more self-conscious than adults in the same situation. The activity in the teenager’s medial prefrontal cortex plays an important role in how young adults perceive themselves.
What Makes Me? | Preview
Explore how we are our brain, how our personality, emotions and memories are encoded as neural activity. The process of becoming continues through our lives. We change our brain and our brain changes us. Premieres Wednesday, October 21, 2015, 10-11 p.m. ET.
All Is Not as It Seems
David explains how the brain is tricked by the checker shadow illusion. What we see doesn’t necessarily match on to the reality beyond our senses.
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