Meme Weaving

Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University, presents examples of cognitive illusions that help illustrate why humans make predictably irrational decisions.

Little-known fact! As Dan Ariely reveals in this lecture, he originally wanted to write a book about cooking and lifestyle. For a good chuckle, watch the video to find out what his first book title might have been.

Illusions, when they have equivalent and predictable effects on the vast majority of people, can tell us much about the arcane wiring of our brains. Al Seckel, world-renknowned cognitive neuroscientist and illusion specialist, surprised and delighted a crowd at TED in 2004 by subjecting them to phantoms of perception they couldn’t avoid, even when they knew the tricks ahead of time.

As one commenter put it, this talk is all about “how perception is deceived and how our deception is perceived.”