Ekman and Darwin's Introspection Illusion

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The voice is incredible. We have a giant chunk of our brain that's oriented toward visual cognition and the face attracted so much attention, thanks to Ekman. And when you start to look across mammalian species, and Darwin wrote about this, there are incredible new studies of the vocalizations of horses and how they communicate. It tells us, contrary to a lot of assumptions, laughter, humor, awe, wonder, our fundamental human emotions as Renee Descartes has argued. So that's why we go get data and do crazy studies.

In this episode we sit down with psychologist Dacher Keltner, one of the world’s leading experts on the science of emotion, the man Pixar hired to help them write Inside Out. In his new book – Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life – he outlines his years of work in this field, the health benefits of awe, the evolutionary origins and likely functions, and how to better pursue more awe and wonder in your own life.