Neuroscientist Shane O’Mara explains how communication is about sharing reality, creating a shared reality together. The podcast discusses how language, memory, and imagination play into communication, and the use of active listening, turn-taking, and mentalizing to create a shared reality together.
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Quick takeaways
Conversation is a shared reality where emotions, memories, and future thinking align through language and communication.
Effective communication involves utilizing gossip as a tool for information exchange, trust-building, and behavior influence.
Active listening is crucial for successful communication, establishing rapport, understanding others, and fostering better outcomes.
Deep dives
Avoiding Cognitive Biases for Better Decision Making
The podcast highlights the importance of being aware of cognitive biases in decision making. It recommends conducting a pre-mortem before making important decisions, imagining the worst-case scenario to identify potential downsides and avoid questionable choices. Reflection and self-evaluation after decision-making are also encouraged as they help improve future decision-making processes.
Creating a Shared Reality Through Conversation
The episode explores the definition of conversation as a means of creating a shared reality through communication. It emphasizes the importance of spoken language and other forms of communication, such as text messages and sign language, in aligning emotions, memories, and future thinking. The episode highlights the collaborative nature of conversations and the role of mentalizing systems in predicting and aligning mental states during interactions.
Understanding the Utility of Gossip and Effective Communication
The podcast challenges the negative perception of gossip and emphasizes its utility in social situations. It discusses how gossip serves as a means of exchanging information, establishing trust, and influencing behavior in a society. The episode suggests that effective communication involves building rapport, asking short and focused questions, and respecting the other person's perspective to elicit information.
Psychological Benefits of Walking and Appreciating Clear Communication
The podcast briefly touches on the psychological benefits of walking, highlighting the importance of walking together and engaging in conversation as a means of feeling connected, reducing stress, and enhancing the overall experience. It also mentions George Orwell as a commendable clear writer, emphasizing the power of language in conveying truths and avoiding obscurity in political discourse.
Key Ingredients for Successful Communication
The podcast concludes with the importance of listening as the primary ingredient for successful communication. It emphasizes active, respectful listening as a means of establishing rapport and facilitating meaningful conversations. The episode underscores the impact of listening on understanding and learning from others, as well as fostering better communication outcomes.
Communication is about so much more than sharing words. As neuroscientist Shane O’Mara explains, communication is about sharing reality.
According to O’Mara, “A conversation is where we create a shared reality together.” As a professor of experimental brain research at Trinity College Dublin, his research has focused on how human brains sync up through communication. “The essence is that we are creating a shared reality where we come to share the same states of emotion, the same states of memory, and we come to think about the future together in a new way.”
On this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, O’Mara joins host Matt Abrahams to discuss how language, memory, and imagination play into communication, and how we can use active listening, turn-taking, and mentalizing to create a shared reality together.