A couple of episodes later, we’re going to look at this idea that’s being explored in a lot of psychological research known as stereotype threat, which is this idea that if you believe that the world holds certain stereotypes about you, your concern that you’re the victim of those stereotypes is going to shape how you behave and how you see the world. One of our early episodes, for example, is going to look at a pattern in communication where people are conversing with one another, but really talking past one another. What are some examples of topics you will cover in the podcast? But others are completely hidden and we actually have no ability to get at them even if we try very hard consciously. Some of these hidden things are actually accessible if we try very hard to pay attention to them. And I think over the last 10 or 20 years there’s just been this explosion of research, empirically grounded rigorous research, that suggests that in everyday life, many of our perceptions and judgments and decisions are shaped by factors that lie outside of conscious awareness. It’s really a metaphor to describe the many things that happen in our minds that lie outside of our conscious awareness. So "hidden brain" is a term that I coined as I was writing my book a few years ago. I think the great joy that I have in this work is finding moments when I can connect work that is rigorous and scientifically solid with the kind of experiences that people have in everyday life-the way they park their car, the way they read a restaurant review-and to basically say, look, there are ways in which science can illumine the life that you lead and help you think about your world with curiosity and freshness. If your question is specifically about the podcast, the goal of Hidden Brain really is to connect people’s everyday lived experiences with interesting and rigorous science. The Hidden Brain has many different incarnations. ( The following has been edited for length.) We spoke with Vedantam to learn more about it. The first episode of the podcast drops on September 22, and a sneak peek is out now. Now those listeners and podcast fanatics everywhere can hear more from Vedantam about the role the unconscious mind plays in their behavior in a new NPR podcast, aptly called Hidden Brain. Vedantam then joined NPR as a science correspondent in 2011, and his radio reports on human behavior and social science quickly gained a loyal following. In 2005, journalist Shankar Vedantam reported a story for The Washington Post in which he explored unconscious bias and the social scientists working to understand it through implicit association tests. He became so fascinated by the influence of the unconscious mind on human behavior that he decided to dive further into the topic in a book called The Hidden Brain. These are the types of questions that social scientists tackle every day, trying to tease apart the complex and sometimes unexpected reasons humans do what they do. Why did I buy that set of steak knives I don't even need? Which online restaurant reviews can I trust? How come my number-loving friend opted out of AP math courses in high school?
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