Time Regained: Using Storytelling to Share Memories Across Brains

Talk Overview

How does your brain change with each story that you hear? How can storytelling shape your memories? In this talk, Dr. Uri Hasson explores how brain activity is shared between listeners of the same story, and how those shared neural responses are coupled to and shaped by the neural activity in the storyteller’s brain. In his studies, Hasson observed higher coupling between listener’s and storyteller’s neural activity as a function of the ability of the listener to understand the story. As Hasson explains, efficient communication occurs when the storyteller’s and listeners’ brain responses are coupled.

In his second part, Hasson explores how the ability of the storyteller to be coupled to and shape the neural responses of listeners is used as a tool to share memories across brains. Furthermore, the studies reveal the tight connections between remembering and imagining and expose the ways by which the storyteller’s perspective shape the audience point of view.

Speaker Bio

Uri Hasson

Dr. Uri Hasson is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University. He obtained his bachelors in Philosophy and Cognitive Science (1994), and his Master in Cognitive Science (1998) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2004, Hasson completed his doctoral degree in the Neurobiology Department at the Weizmann… Continue Reading