Site • RSS • Apple PodcastsDescription (podcaster-provided):
Welcome to The Neuromantics – a monthly podcast for writers, psychologists, neuroscientists, poets, philosophers, comedians, musicians, and anyone interested in the exchange of ideas. The idea: a free-ranging conversation between Professor Sophie Scott (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/icn/people/sophie-scott and @sophiescott) of the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL and Will Eaves about the brain, the mind, language, gesture, and communication as a fundamental property of science, literature and the arts. The format: roughly 30 mins of chat with musical stings in the punning style of the podcast title by Michael Caines. Sophie shares a bit of research. Will brings along a poem, story, speech, or essay. There will be guests in the future. There will be events.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ neuroscience and psychology research paired with literature • brain, mind, perception, memory, language • cognitive bias, naming, inner speech/voices • reading and handwriting/typing • emotion, humour, music • ageing, dementia, trauma, social bonds • animal cognition (primates, birds)This podcast brings together cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and literary discussion in conversational form, using a recurring structure in which one host introduces a research paper and the other introduces a poem, story, essay, or other literary text, then explores the connections between them. Across episodes, the focus is often on how minds make meaning through language, perception, memory, and social interaction, and on how those processes can be revealed by both experiments and imaginative writing.
Topics frequently return to communication in broad terms: speech and voice (including inner speech, non-clinical voice-hearing, and how people interpret ambiguous sounds), reading and visual recognition (including links between face processing and literacy), and the bodily and emotional dimensions of experience, such as how feelings map onto physical sensation or how music relates to reward and pleasure. The show also examines cognition in everyday problem-solving—bias, expectation, and error—and how habits of attention can constrain or expand what people notice and believe.
A recurring theme is the tension between what seems real and what is inferred or constructed, whether in memory, perception, or interpretation. Alongside human studies, animal research—especially on birds and primates—appears as a way to contrast different kinds of attention, social bonding, and learning. Literature is used not as illustration but as another mode of inquiry, engaging questions around identity, ageing and dementia, trauma and inheritance, sexuality and social norms, humour, metaphor, and the uncanny.
