Some sounds bring happy memories flooding back. Other sounds put us on edge; drive us to distraction; or cause us considerable distress. Sound matters... so why don't we pay more attention to our sonic environment?   In a mash-up with our friends at the podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz, Dr. Laurie Santos joins Dallas Taylor to create a Handbook for Sonic Happiness explaining how sound can harm our wellbeing or be a route to greater happiness. Featuring auditory psychologist David Poeppel, psychology researcher Giulia Poerio, clinical psychologist Ali Mattu, sound scholar Mac Hagood and acoustician Trevor Cox.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Language comes naturally to us, but is also deeply mysterious. On the one hand, it manifests as a collection of sounds or marks on paper. On the other hand, it also conveys meaning – words and sentences refer to states of affairs in the outside world, or to much more abstract concepts. How do words and meaning come together in the brain? David Poeppel is a leading neuroscientist who works in many areas, with a focus on the relationship between language and thought. We talk about cutting-edge ideas in the science and philosophy of language, and how researchers have just recently climbed out from under a nineteenth-century paradigm for understanding how all this works. David Poeppel is a Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU, as well as the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, Germany. He received his Ph.D. in cognitive science from MIT. He is a Fellow of the American Association of Arts and Sciences, and was awarded the DaimlerChrysler Berlin Prize in 2004. He is the author, with Greg Hickok, of the dual-stream model of language processing. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We spend a lot of time curating for taste, touch, smell, and vision. But too often, sound gets overlooked. We forget that we can get rid of sounds that annoy us, and surround ourselves with sounds that we love. When we do, it can have huge benefits for our mood and wellbeing. In this episode, Dr. Laurie Santos of The Happiness Lab joins Dallas to create a Handbook for Sonic Happiness. Featuring auditory psychologist David Poeppel, psychology researcher Giulia Poerio, clinical psychologist Ali Mattu, sound scholar Mac Hagood and acoustician Trevor Cox.Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn.Watch our video shorts on YouTube, and join the discussion on Reddit and Facebook.Sign up for Twenty Thousand Hertz+ to support the show & get our entire catalog ad-free.If you know what this week's mystery sound is, tell us at mystery.20k.org.Listen to more episodes of The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos here.Visit athleticgreens.com/20k to get a one-year supply of vitamin D and 5 travel packs free with your first purchase.Hiring? Sign up at Indeed.com/Hertz and get a $75 credit to sponsor your first job post for better visibility, more applications, and quicker hiring times.Episode transcript, music, and credits can be found here: https://www.20k.org/episodes/sonichappiness Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Poeppel, researcher studying auditory cognition, speech perception, language, and music at NYU, returns to discuss the mysteries of memory storage, the language of thought hypothesis, and the pace of scientific progress in understanding the brain. They explore the challenges of studying memory, the implementation requirements for language processing, and the potential combination of symbolic computation and dynamics in the brain. They also delve into the downside of unprincipled data mining and the re-emergence of the language of thought hypothesis in cognitive organization.

Some sounds are like rug burn for your ears, while others are pleasant and soothing. We explore these sounds and get to the bottom of why we might interpret them as “good” or “bad”. Featuring Tommy Edison and David Poeppel.  Twenty Thousand Hertz is hosted by Dallas Taylor and produced out of the studios of Defacto Sound. Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn.Watch our video shorts on YouTube, and join the discussion on Reddit and Facebook.Consider supporting the show at donate.20k.org Episode transcript, music, and credits can be found here: https://www.20k.org/episodes/good-bad-and-irritating Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices