170: Daniel Levitin

 

©Peter Prato

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This week we talk to Daniel Levitin

Daniel Levitin is an award-winning scientist, musician, author and record producer.

He is the author of three consecutive #1 bestselling books: This Is Your Brain on Music, The World in Six Songs and The Organized Mind. He is also the James McGill Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, where he runs the Laboratory for Music Cognition, Perception and Expertise.

Dr. Daniel Levitin earned his B.A. in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science at Stanford University, and went on to earn his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Oregon.

He has consulted on audio sound source separation for the U.S. Navy, and on audio quality for several rock bands and record labels (including the Grateful Dead and Steely Dan), and served as one of the “Golden Ears” expert listeners in the original Dolby AC3 compression tests. 

He taught at Stanford University in the Department of Computer Science, the Program in Human-Computer Interaction, and the Departments of Psychology, Anthropology, Computer Music, and History of Science. Currently, he is a James McGill Professor of Psychology, Behavioural Neuroscience, and Music at McGill University (Montreal, Quebec), and Dean of Arts and Humanities at the Minerva Schools at KGI.

His latest book is called Weaponized Lies: How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era

 

 In This Interview, Daniel Levitin and I Discuss...

• His new book,Weaponized Lies: How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era
• Evidence-based thinking
• Critical Thinking
• The myth that the MMR vaccine causes autism
• The difference between correlation and causation
• Belief Perseverance
• The danger of adopting a belief before all of the evidence is in
• That we tend to make decisions emotionally rather than based on evidence
• Persuasion by association
• How important it is to question the status quo
• Information overload
• His book, The Organized Mind
• What's wrong with multitasking
• The effect of multitasking
• Rapid task switching
• Decision fatigue
• The benefits of restorative time for the brain
• His book, This is Your Brain on Music
• The 6 songs Daniel Levitin gave his friend who didn't really get rock 'n roll
• The songs he would add to that list now
• The role of music in our brains
• How music and the arts can regulate our mood
• The power of the arts to re-contextualize things for us
• Music therapy vs Music and emotion
• The role of opioids in experiencing musical pleasure

 

 

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