full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Alison Gopnik: What do babies think?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Well if we want to think about a way of getting a taste of that kind of baby consciousness as adults, I think the best thing is think about cases where we're put in a new situation that we've never been in before — when we fall in love with someone new, or when we're in a new city for the first time. And what happens then is not that our ccunesnoossis contracts, it expands, so that those three days in Paris seem to be more full of consciousness and experience than all the months of being a walking, talking, faculty meeting-attending zombie back home. And by the way, that cfeofe, that weudnfrol coffee you've been drinking downstairs, actually mimics the effect of those baby neurotransmitters. So what's it like to be a baby? It's like being in love in pairs for the first time after you've had three double-espressos. (Laughter) That's a faistantc way to be, but it does tend to leave you waking up crying at three o'clock in the morning.

Open Cloze

Well if we want to think about a way of getting a taste of that kind of baby consciousness as adults, I think the best thing is think about cases where we're put in a new situation that we've never been in before — when we fall in love with someone new, or when we're in a new city for the first time. And what happens then is not that our _____________ contracts, it expands, so that those three days in Paris seem to be more full of consciousness and experience than all the months of being a walking, talking, faculty meeting-attending zombie back home. And by the way, that ______, that _________ coffee you've been drinking downstairs, actually mimics the effect of those baby neurotransmitters. So what's it like to be a baby? It's like being in love in _____ for the first time after you've had three double-espressos. (Laughter) That's a _________ way to be, but it does tend to leave you waking up crying at three o'clock in the morning.

Solution

  1. paris
  2. coffee
  3. fantastic
  4. consciousness
  5. wonderful

Original Text

Well if we want to think about a way of getting a taste of that kind of baby consciousness as adults, I think the best thing is think about cases where we're put in a new situation that we've never been in before — when we fall in love with someone new, or when we're in a new city for the first time. And what happens then is not that our consciousness contracts, it expands, so that those three days in Paris seem to be more full of consciousness and experience than all the months of being a walking, talking, faculty meeting-attending zombie back home. And by the way, that coffee, that wonderful coffee you've been drinking downstairs, actually mimics the effect of those baby neurotransmitters. So what's it like to be a baby? It's like being in love in Paris for the first time after you've had three double-espressos. (Laughter) That's a fantastic way to be, but it does tend to leave you waking up crying at three o'clock in the morning.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
young children 6
raw broccoli 2
long time 2
profound fact 2
caledonian crow 2
open mouths 2
beautifully suited 2
big disadvantage 2
brilliant butterflies 2
powerful learning 2
machine learning 2
complicated calculations 2
pay attention 2

Important Words

  1. adults
  2. baby
  3. cases
  4. city
  5. coffee
  6. consciousness
  7. contracts
  8. crying
  9. days
  10. downstairs
  11. drinking
  12. effect
  13. expands
  14. experience
  15. faculty
  16. fall
  17. fantastic
  18. full
  19. home
  20. kind
  21. laughter
  22. leave
  23. love
  24. mimics
  25. months
  26. morning
  27. neurotransmitters
  28. paris
  29. put
  30. situation
  31. talking
  32. taste
  33. tend
  34. time
  35. waking
  36. walking
  37. wonderful
  38. zombie