Stanford Psychology Podcast
The student-led Stanford Psychology Podcast invites leading psychologists to talk about what’s on their mind lately. Join Eric Neumann, Anjie Cao, Kate Petrova, Bella Fascendini, Joseph Outa and Julia Rathmann-Bloch as they chat with their guests about their latest exciting work. Every week, an episode will bring you new findings from psychological science and how they can be applied to everyday life. The opinions and views expressed in this podcast represent those of the speaker and not necessarily Stanford's. Subscribe at stanfordpsypod.substack.com. Let us hear your thoughts at stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter @StanfordPsyPod. Visit our website https://stanfordpsychologypodcast.com. Soundtrack: Corey Zhou (UCSD). Logo: Sarah Wu (Stanford)
Stanford Psychology Podcast
128 – Halie Olson: How our Brains Care About our Personal Interests
In this episode, Adani chats with Dr. Halie Olson! Halie is a postdoctoral researcher at MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Her research explores how early life experiences and environments impact brain development, particularly in the context of language, and what this means for children’s outcomes.
Halie talks about the intriguing backstory and results of her recent pre-print paper titled “When the Brain Cares: Personal interests amplify engagement of language, self-reference, and reward regions in the brains of children with and without autism.” In particular, she discusses what it means to be really interested in something, and how our brains respond to language about things we’re personally interested in. Halie also shares how she first got involved in research, her favorite parts about science, what she is excited to work on next, and a fun book recommendation!
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Halie’s paper: https://doi.org/10.1101%2F2023.03.21.533695
Halie's website: halieolson.com
Adani’s website: adaniabutto.com
Podcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPod
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