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-meets-literature conversations • perception, imagery, inner speech, voice-hearing • memory, naming, reading, handwriting/typing • emotion, humour, music reward • cognitive bias/problem-solving • ageing, dementia, trauma • social bonds, culture, sexuality • animal cognition (birds/primates) • metaphor, magic, uncannyThis podcast brings together cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and literary writing in conversational form, pairing a research paper with a poem, story, essay, or other text to explore how scientific findings and artistic works illuminate each other. Across the episodes, recurring topics include perception and misperception—how attention, expectation, and prior knowledge shape what people (and sometimes other animals) think they see or hear. The discussions range from sleight-of-hand and the “uncanny” to ambiguous speech, inner voices, and the boundaries between imagination, hallucination, and ordinary inner speech.
Language and communication are central themes, including how we retrieve and use names, how sound and meaning interact (from “funny” phonemes to timbre and pitch), and what handwriting, typing, and reading reveal about cognition and embodiment. Several episodes connect brain mechanisms to lived experience across the lifespan, touching on learning and neural plasticity in older age, dementia and cognitive decline, and the social assumptions embedded in ideas like “successful ageing.”
The show also frequently examines social cognition: laughter, trust, self-disclosure, grooming and bonding in primates, cultural participation and mental health, and how trauma, loss, and socio-economic context affect individuals and families over time. Non-human animals—especially birds and primates—appear often as comparative cases for memory, navigation, face recognition, and shared attention.
Literary selections span poetry, short fiction, novels, and older texts, and are used to probe themes of memory, agency, grief, desire, identity, and the ways narratives can both reflect and reshape how minds make meaning.
