full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Nancy Kanwisher: A neural portrait of the human mind

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Well, I'm wondering about that too, and we're running a bunch of experiments in my lab right now to try to find a number of other possible setoaziiaipncls in the brain for other very specific mental functions. But inotarlmpty, I don't think we have specializations in the brain for every important mental function, even mental functions that may be critical for surviavl. In fact, a few years ago, there was a scientist in my lab who became quite convinced that he'd found a brain region for detecting food, and it responded really strongly in the sancenr when people looked at images like this. And further, he found a similar rsesonpe in more or less the same location in 10 out of 12 sbjecuts. So he was ptrtey stoked, and he was running around the lab telling everyone that he was going to go on "Oprah" with his big discovery. But then he dveeisd the critical test: He showed subjects iaegms of food like this and compared them to images with very similar color and shape, but that weren't food, like these. And his region responded the same to both sets of images. So it wasn't a food area, it was just a roigen that liked colors and shapes. So much for "Oprah."

Open Cloze

Well, I'm wondering about that too, and we're running a bunch of experiments in my lab right now to try to find a number of other possible _______________ in the brain for other very specific mental functions. But ___________, I don't think we have specializations in the brain for every important mental function, even mental functions that may be critical for ________. In fact, a few years ago, there was a scientist in my lab who became quite convinced that he'd found a brain region for detecting food, and it responded really strongly in the _______ when people looked at images like this. And further, he found a similar ________ in more or less the same location in 10 out of 12 ________. So he was ______ stoked, and he was running around the lab telling everyone that he was going to go on "Oprah" with his big discovery. But then he _______ the critical test: He showed subjects ______ of food like this and compared them to images with very similar color and shape, but that weren't food, like these. And his region responded the same to both sets of images. So it wasn't a food area, it was just a ______ that liked colors and shapes. So much for "Oprah."

Solution

  1. response
  2. importantly
  3. survival
  4. region
  5. specializations
  6. images
  7. scanner
  8. pretty
  9. devised
  10. subjects

Original Text

Well, I'm wondering about that too, and we're running a bunch of experiments in my lab right now to try to find a number of other possible specializations in the brain for other very specific mental functions. But importantly, I don't think we have specializations in the brain for every important mental function, even mental functions that may be critical for survival. In fact, a few years ago, there was a scientist in my lab who became quite convinced that he'd found a brain region for detecting food, and it responded really strongly in the scanner when people looked at images like this. And further, he found a similar response in more or less the same location in 10 out of 12 subjects. So he was pretty stoked, and he was running around the lab telling everyone that he was going to go on "Oprah" with his big discovery. But then he devised the critical test: He showed subjects images of food like this and compared them to images with very similar color and shape, but that weren't food, like these. And his region responded the same to both sets of images. So it wasn't a food area, it was just a region that liked colors and shapes. So much for "Oprah."

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
human mind 5
brain imaging 4
blood flow 4
face area 4
brain regions 4
specific mental 3
specialized brain 3
neural portrait 2
highly specialized 2
face recognition 2
long time 2
functional mri 2
higher mri 2
responds strongly 2
selectively responsive 2
selectively involved 2
region responds 2
mental functions 2
specialized components 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
specialized brain regions 3

Important Words

  1. area
  2. big
  3. brain
  4. bunch
  5. color
  6. colors
  7. compared
  8. convinced
  9. critical
  10. detecting
  11. devised
  12. discovery
  13. experiments
  14. fact
  15. find
  16. food
  17. function
  18. functions
  19. images
  20. important
  21. importantly
  22. lab
  23. location
  24. looked
  25. mental
  26. number
  27. people
  28. pretty
  29. region
  30. responded
  31. response
  32. running
  33. scanner
  34. scientist
  35. sets
  36. shape
  37. shapes
  38. showed
  39. similar
  40. specializations
  41. specific
  42. stoked
  43. strongly
  44. subjects
  45. survival
  46. telling
  47. wondering
  48. years