Transcript

So I'm a cognitive neuroscientist. I put together psychology, neuroscience and behavioral economics, and I mix it up. I bring people into my lab, and I try to understand the brain mechanisms that give rise to how people act every day, how they interact, how they make decisions. And so today I'm going to share with you what we've learned about how people form beliefs, why these beliefs can be quite stubborn, but how change is possible if we understand the human mind, if we understand how people think. So we're going to start by exploring thinking, and the first thing we're going to do is I'm going to do a little experiment with everyone here. What I'm going to do is I'm going to show you three numbers, and I'm going to ask you to figure out the rule that I use to generate those numbers. But for now, just keep it in your mind. Ok, don't say anything.

So my numbers are 246, four, six. Okay, now I'm going to let you give me free numbers, and I will tell you whether those numbers fit my rule or not, and then I will guess. I'll let you guess what the rule is. Okay, so I'm going to start with you giving me free numbers, three, five and 735. And seven. Yes, that fits my rule. Do you want to guess a rule, adding two to each number? OK, adding two to each number. No, that's not my rule. You're in the middle here. Yeah, I was going to say 363, three, six and nine. Yes, that fits my rule. Do you want to guess it? It is you have the first number and then you add the first number to each consecutive number. No, it's a good guess, though.