Name: Your Brain: Perception Deception
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Did your memories ever really happen? Turns out, every time you recall a memory, it gets a little more false. Scientists explain why your memories change over time—and why they’re less real than you think.

It turns out memories have a very shaky foundation.

Your Memories Are Not as True as You Think

Remember the infamous debate about “the dress”? Whether you saw it as blue/black or white/gold, it all comes down to the way your brain perceives color. A vision scientist explains.

A vision scientist breaks down the infamous dress debate.

How Your Brain Interprets Color

Is what you see real? Join neuroscientist Heather Berlin on a quest to understand how your brain shapes your reality, and why you can’t always trust what you perceive. Learn the surprising tricks and shortcuts the brain takes to help us survive.

Neuroscientists discover the tricks and shortcuts the brain takes to help us survive.

Your Brain: Perception Deception

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the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

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Is what you see real? Join neuroscientist Heather Berlin on a quest to understand how your brain shapes your reality, and why you can’t always trust what you perceive. In the first hour of this two-part series, learn what the latest research shows about how your brain processes and shapes the world around you, and discover the surprising tricks and shortcuts your brain takes to help you survive. (A two-part series. Part 1 premiered May 17, 2023)

New York University

Barrow Neurological Institute

Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Neuroscientists discover the tricks and shortcuts the brain takes to help us survive.

Body & Brain

Are you in control of your brain, or is your brain controlling you? Dive into the latest research on the subconscious with neuroscientist Heather Berlin to see what’s really driving the decisions you make.

Dive into the subconscious to see what’s really driving the decisions you make.

Your Brain: Who's in Control?

Your Brain: Who's in Control? Preview

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Are you in control, or is your brain controlling you? Dive into the latest research on the subconscious with neuroscientist Heather Berlin. Sleepwalking, anesthesia, game theory, and more reveal surprising insights in this eye-opening journey to discover what’s really driving the decisions you make. (Episode 2 of a two-part series, premiered May 24, 2023)

Dive into the subconscious to see what’s really driving the decisions you make.

Blue graphic of a brain sketch and neurons.

How does your brain create your reality? Are you in control, or is your brain controlling you? Discover the surprising answers based on the latest research in this eye-opening journey into the human brain with neuroscientist Heather Berlin. Your brain – for centuries a black box – is slowly giving up its secrets to modern neuroscience, shedding light on big questions that go to the very heart of who you are. (A two-part series premiering May 17, 2023 at 9 pm)

Is what you see real? Does your mind control you? Discover how your brain really works.

Is what you see real? Does your mind control you? Discover how your brain really works.

Your Brain

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Colossal explosions shake a remote corner of the Siberian tundra, leaving behind massive craters. In Alaska, a huge lake erupts with bubbles of inflammable gas. Scientists are discovering that these mystifying phenomena add up to a ticking time bomb, as long-frozen permafrost melts and releases vast amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. What are the implications of these dramatic developments in the Arctic? Scientists and local communities alike are struggling to grasp the scale of the methane threat and what it means for our climate future. (Premiered February 2, 2022)

In the Arctic, enormous releases of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, threaten the climate.

Arctic Sinkholes

The top half of Jupiter in blue and green against a night sky

A composite image of Jupiter using images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Judy Schmidt.

Explore the cosmos, delve into ancient history, and follow an extreme rescue with NOVA’s most-watched documentaries released in 2022.

NOVA’s most popular science documentaries of 2022

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A transmission electron micrograph of HIV-1 virus particles (orange) replicating from the plasma membrane of an infected H9 T cell. Credit: NIAID, Flickr

Scientists have cured a handful of people of HIV by piggybacking on treatments they received for blood cancer. But does that bring a widespread cure any closer?

Your Brain: Perception Deception

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Support Provided By

Your Brain: Who's in Control?

Explore More

Dream Hacking: Decisions, Addictions, and Sleep

Can You Upload Your Brain?

How Psychedelics Change the Brain

Your Brain: Who's in Control?

Your Brain: Perception Deception

Physics Is Erasing Your Memory

The Supercomputer That Could Map the Human Brain

Inside the Memory Machine

Can We Build a Brain?

This Is Your Brain and Body on Power

Memory Hackers

Using artificial intelligence, scientists translate brain signals into speech