People Who Read People: A Behavior and Psychology Podcast
People Who Read People: A Behavior and Psychology Podcast
Zachary Elwood
Can brain scans identify people's thoughts?, with Marcel Just
1 hour 3 minutes Posted Jun 6, 2020 at 11:00 pm.
0:00
1:03:06
Download MP3
Show notes

I talk with Marcel Just about his research using fMRI brain imaging to identify brain activity associated with specific thoughts: for example, identifying that a subject is thinking about an apple, or about death. Dr. Just and his team have been twice featured on the show "60 Minutes." Topics discussed include: the nature of human thought; how much is our consciousness individual thoughts vs many things firing at once?; why brain activity for specific thoughts and emotions trigger specific areas of the brain in consistent, predictable ways; why thoughts and emotions activate the same types of patterns for so many people, even across language divides; how fMRI works and why it is a good choice for this type of work (versus EEG, for example); the state of this technology, its potential applications, and what its practical limitations are.

Learn more about the show and get transcripts at⁠ ⁠behavior-podcast.com⁠⁠.   

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices