Why can making something bigger make it harder to see? | Duje Tadin, PhD

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Our perception is not there to give us just an
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accurate carbon copy picture of the world. Its
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job is to give us something useful. We have massive
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bandwidth issues. We need to extract the stuff
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that really matters to us. And long story short,
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we don't see large motions well because our brain
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treats those as background motions. So think
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about if you're driving, you're working around,
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there's all this background motion around you.
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And if you wasted your resources to process that,
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you were wasting a lot of very valuable real
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estate in the brain to process information that's
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generally not that useful. Not useful. Welcome
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to another episode of Neuroscience Perspectives.
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I'm John Foxe, Director of the Del Monte Institute
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for Neuroscience at University of Rochester Medicine.
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Please subscribe, follow, and like us wherever
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you listen to your podcasts. Today, I couldn't
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be any happier. than to be joined by Dr. Duje
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Tadin, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences,
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ophthalmology, neuroscience, and a member of
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the Center for Visual Science here at U Rochester.
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Dr. Tadin studies how the brain makes sense
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of the visual world, how it detects motion, selects
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meaningful signals, ignores distractions, and
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integrates information across the senses. His
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research has advanced our understanding of visual
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perception and its differences in conditions
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like autism, schizophrenia, stroke, and low vision.
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He's a recipient of numerous awards, including
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the NARSAD Independent Investigator Award, the
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Elsevier Vision Sciences Society Young Investigator
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Award. Duje, I couldn't honestly be happier than
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to have, it's been ages, we've been trying to
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get this together, and here we are, so I'm really...
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dying to dive into a chat and to introduce our
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audience to your amazing trajectory in life.
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Thank you, John. It's really great to be here.
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I've looked at many of these videos and it's
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really a privilege to be sitting here talking
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to you. I couldn't be happier. Let's talk a bit
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about your science. You know, one of the things,
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you know, I obviously know a bit of your science
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and we've actually got to do science together,
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which is fantastic, really amazing. You like
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to leverage The world of illusions, for example,
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to get after some fundamental truths. And, you
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know, I was just thinking like, you know, you
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showed that making something bigger can actually
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make it harder to see. Explain that to our audience.
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There's a good story. I missed the party because
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of this one. So I was, I think, second or first
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year grad student. And I was working on this
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motion discrimination task. And just, you know,
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it's very basic, boring. Things go left and right.
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You push a button which way it goes. And it was
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Friday afternoon. And I was thinking, what if
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I just make my stimulus bigger? We're talking
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about like grading. These backgrounds are not
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by accident. And so it was like Friday, maybe
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Friday noon, Friday morning, I make it bigger
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and it gets like four times hotter. And I was
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like, wow, this is weird. And so I had a party
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to go that afternoon. Instead of going to a party,
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I stayed in the lab and I collected my data on
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a range of sizes and contrasts. And within a
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few weeks, I got four of my friends to collect
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data and all showed this very simple result,
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which was like, I think, four or five -fold effect.
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So you have a grading, sliding left or sliding
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right. Your job is to say it's going to the left
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or it's going to the right. And you're making
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it brighter, more contrasty. Then if you make
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it, if you go with small and you make it bigger,
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it gets five times harder to see. When all intuition
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says it should be much easier. It should be easier.
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You make things bigger to make them more visible.
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But if you take this big thing and you decrease
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the contrast, then it becomes visible again.
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Which is also backwards. Which is also backwards.
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And then I collected data from people around
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my hallway. And a few months later, we have a
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nature paper out of it. I'm really proud of that
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paper because I just checked recently. There's
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not a single statistical test in the entire paper.
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No p -value. That wouldn't happen today. That
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wouldn't happen today. This was 2003. Because
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the data are just prima facie, so evident. And
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I know some reviewers actually checked it on
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their own just to make sure it was correct. And
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what I liked about it was the sort of counterintuitive
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nature of perception. A perception is not there
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to give us just an accurate, carbon copy picture
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of the world. His job is to give us something
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useful. We have massive bandwidth issues. We
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need to extract the stiff that really matters
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to us. And the long story short, we don't see
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large motions well because our brain treats those
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as background motions. So think about if you're
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driving, you're working around, there's all this
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background motion around you. Yeah. And if you
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wasted your resources to process that, you were
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wasting a lot of very valuable real estate in
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the brain to process information that's generally
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not that useful. Not useful, yeah. What's really
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interesting is as you get older, your ability
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to see background motion gets better. Yeah, right.
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Which is another wrinkle in the story. Right,
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so you're getting better at something that's
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actually maladaptive. Maladaptive. And shows
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that difference between the stuff that your brain...
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and the reality of the physical dimensions that
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are out there in the world. Yeah, so you want
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to get rid of information that's not as useful
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to you. And if you get older, at least in this
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domain, our ability to suppress the information
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gets weaker. But it's great to have an older
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adult in a lab and they're doing a task and I'm
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looking at the screen and I can't tell which
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way these things are going and the person is
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just happily getting everything correct. That's
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fantastic. So the difference is that massive.
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And then you used brain interruption techniques
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to make people better at this task as well, right?
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And then, oh, and this ended to SNL. There's
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a story there too. To Saturday Night Live. Saturday
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Night Live, the weekend update. Oh, wow. That's
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the pinnacle of science. To get Nobel Prize.
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That's going to be my tombstone when I'm done.
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So what we did was we were thinking the reason
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we don't see these motions because in area MT
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acts as a break. Right. So this is a motion area
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in the brain, the posterior part of the brain.
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And so if this is the break, if you remove the
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break from the processing stream, maybe you will
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be able to perceive these things that you normally
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cannot. Yeah. We did this with my collaborator,
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Laurel Battelli at Harvard, because I came here
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and my lab wasn't ready. So I went to Boston
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to collect data there. And the first person that
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ran the task, this guy was in a room, comes out
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and said, these things are not confusing anymore.
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And he just came out and said, I can see these
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things now after my brain was zapped. So you're
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zapping, you're using transcranial magnetic stimulation.
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So you're inducing current in a brain area that's
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specialized for seeing motion. you think that
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this brain area is putting the brakes on this
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particular process, and you're releasing the
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brake by zapping it. Yeah, and it worked. The
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person comes out. So I'm not being confused.
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Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Absolutely amazing.
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And then so we did a study. We published the
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paper, and I was, you know, we did a – this is
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the first time I talked to somebody in the press
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office at the university. So I talked to this
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person. We did a press release. And I talked
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a lot of detail, a lot of boring detail about
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the study. And at the end, I mentioned that this
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is relevant to driving because there's a lot
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of background motion when you're driving. And
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I mentioned something about older adults because
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they have weaker suppression. But this study
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had nothing to do with driving. It had nothing
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to do with older adults. So then I'm on a trip
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with Molly, my wife, and we're in San Francisco.
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And on Sunday morning, my phone is blowing up
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and getting all these messages that... this study
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was an SNL weekend update. Amazing. And the comment
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was about older adults being distracted by interracial
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couples in the background while driving. I see.
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So there's nothing, yeah, there were no older
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adults, there was no driving in the study. Quite
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risky little thing, yeah. But the press release
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mentioned that. And it was great. And then for
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a week, it was everywhere. And I remember being
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very nervous because some of the, one of the
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craziest stories was not the SNL one, was being
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called into the radio station in, And this person
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was trying to get me to say that older adults
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shouldn't drive. Ah, right. And this is one of
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those when I said, yes, I wish I didn't. And
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I didn't say that, of course. But it was a very
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awkward interview with the person. And then a
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week later, like it never happened. That's a
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beautiful thing. So that was what I like about
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the story. It started with just an observation
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in the lab. It's like, wow. I made my stimulus
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bigger and it was harder to see. And instead
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of saying, well, that's not my study, I shouldn't
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worry about it, I went and collected data that
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evening and created a line of research that gave
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me the job that I have now. And it was all in
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a hunch. What if I do this? But it's another
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example of saying yes, like going down a path
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that opened up. Or what if? What if we do this?
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And I think to me, that's the beauty of science
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is that our job is asking, what if? What if we
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look at this? What if we study this in this population?
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Could this be different? And I think I didn't
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think of it in that way. Dave Nill was one of
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my senior faculty mentors. And he really always
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talked about importance of asking the right questions.
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And I never articulated it that way. But clearly,
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that's what I was doing as a student. So now
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when I talk to students and really say, what
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we do is. We know how to run studies. We know
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how to collect data. But unless you ask the right
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question in the beginning, a lot of it doesn't
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matter as much. Let's keep going with this. People
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who are better at things that maybe wouldn't
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make sense in the first blush. I mean, you've
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also studied perception in schizophrenia and
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in folks on the autism spectrum and find some
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peculiar excellence in skills. Give us some thoughts
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about that. Why? Why are you studying in folks
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with diseases? So I was a grad student, and I
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presented my research more often than I was required.
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And this is what I tell my students. Any chance
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you have to give a talk, take it. Take it. Because,
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one, you're going to get better in giving a talk.
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But, two, somebody in the audience may ask something
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that can completely change the direction of your
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research. And so it was really a Vanderbilt.
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And so he parked. was at one of my talks, and
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she asked a simple question. It's like, well,
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this is very interesting. Do you have any idea
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how people with schizophrenia could have this
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differently? And then we studied this schizophrenia,
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and we found weaker suppression. Similar result
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to older adults, maybe not as pronounced. The
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autism was even more interesting is through Molly,
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who was my girlfriend at the time, and now my
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wife, is she had a friend, Jennifer Fike, who
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I think you know. And we were at the party. I
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guess there's a party thing here. We were at
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the party, a social event, mostly non -scientists,
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some scientists. And we start talking to each
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other because Molly introduced me to Jen. And,
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of course, we were both two nerds. Instead of
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talking about whatever other people were talking
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about, we started talking about science. And
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then we started working together on looking at
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emotional perception in autism. And what came
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out from that study is... When we ran the study,
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we didn't find any differences in suppression
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in kids with autism. The suppression was essentially
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identical as that with neurotypical kids. But
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the thresholds were, I think, about half as much,
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which is better, than controls. Like all the
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high contrast stimuli. So it didn't matter if
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it was large or small. If the stimulus was high
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contrast, high intensity, they were much better,
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much quicker at seeing the emotion. If things
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were low contrast, there was no difference. To
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us, with autism, this sort of hypersensitivity
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to high -intensity stimuli, we thought this was
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one example of that. And then, as you know, because
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it's autism, some people replicated it, some
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didn't. We didn't replicate it, and then we did.
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It wasn't as dramatic as the first time, but
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that got me along the line of sort of studying
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this and many different things in different populations.
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And when I started grad school, I had papers
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with two authors. Two subjects. So, you know,
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sometimes more authors than subjects in a paper.
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Yeah. Because the assumption was that everybody
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sees the world the same way. So why do I need
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to study 10 people? I can just study myself.
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Yeah. And really, these insights of studying
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schizophrenia and autism and other individual
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differences, like IQ and so on, what's remarkable
00:12:29.590 --> 00:12:31.409
about perception that I didn't appreciate when
00:12:31.409 --> 00:12:33.389
I was younger is how different it is for all
00:12:33.389 --> 00:12:35.919
of us. That brings up thought, actually. Like,
00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:38.879
you know, are there ideas? Maybe that was one.
00:12:39.870 --> 00:12:43.570
in science that you've held on to too long? Too
00:12:43.570 --> 00:12:49.059
long. I think we had this one study that also
00:12:49.059 --> 00:12:54.629
got a lot of press. And I think we were... So
00:12:54.629 --> 00:12:56.509
I was talking about surround suppression. Suppressing
00:12:56.509 --> 00:12:59.250
background motion as an efficient way of doing
00:12:59.250 --> 00:13:03.429
processing. And one day I sort of had an insight
00:13:03.429 --> 00:13:04.850
that said, well, if this is an efficient way
00:13:04.850 --> 00:13:06.730
of doing processing, maybe people that have...
00:13:06.830 --> 00:13:09.350
more efficient brain, higher IQ will have stronger
00:13:09.350 --> 00:13:12.090
suppression. And because when you do clinical
00:13:12.090 --> 00:13:14.289
work, you do IQ testing. So I looked them on
00:13:14.289 --> 00:13:15.850
my data sets and it was this nice correlation
00:13:15.850 --> 00:13:19.450
between IQ and suppression strength that people
00:13:19.450 --> 00:13:22.929
with higher IQ had higher suppression. And then
00:13:22.929 --> 00:13:26.429
we did a bigger study here at Rochester, and
00:13:26.429 --> 00:13:28.250
we replicated the effect, and it was this really
00:13:28.250 --> 00:13:30.110
high correlation. I have one reviewer complain
00:13:30.110 --> 00:13:32.669
it was too high. Gotcha. And we published it,
00:13:32.789 --> 00:13:35.769
and it was in microbiology, and again, got a
00:13:35.769 --> 00:13:38.649
lot of press. And then we did a couple other
00:13:38.649 --> 00:13:41.809
replications, and it just wasn't as general as
00:13:41.809 --> 00:13:43.970
we thought. I really thought we're going to look
00:13:43.970 --> 00:13:45.950
at this battery of surround suppression tests,
00:13:46.029 --> 00:13:48.490
and we're going to find that if you have stronger
00:13:48.490 --> 00:13:52.389
suppression in one... one task going to have
00:13:52.389 --> 00:13:53.750
a stronger suppression than other tasks. And
00:13:53.750 --> 00:13:55.549
maybe like high -AQ brains are just very good
00:13:55.549 --> 00:13:57.990
at suppressing irrelevant information. And we
00:13:57.990 --> 00:14:00.529
didn't find that. It was much more focused. So
00:14:00.529 --> 00:14:03.509
this big, nice story of you have this efficient
00:14:03.509 --> 00:14:05.409
brain. It's great at sort of sorting out the
00:14:05.409 --> 00:14:07.389
information. If it's not relevant, it gets suppressed
00:14:07.389 --> 00:14:10.169
really well. And if it's relevant, it gets enhanced.
00:14:10.909 --> 00:14:14.169
It wasn't there. It wasn't there. But I think
00:14:14.169 --> 00:14:16.889
now that you think about it, the idea of being
00:14:16.889 --> 00:14:19.139
wrong. Yeah, well, that's what I'm after. Yeah,
00:14:19.259 --> 00:14:22.059
yeah. I think it's very important to show, like,
00:14:22.100 --> 00:14:26.039
so when we did the second IQ study and we didn't
00:14:26.039 --> 00:14:27.980
replicate it, we published that paper. Good.
00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:29.639
We wanted to make sure it's out there. Yeah.
00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:31.440
The unfortunate thing is everybody decides the
00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:32.799
first paper, not the second one. No, they just
00:14:32.799 --> 00:14:33.960
ignore the other one. It's not nearly as good.
00:14:33.960 --> 00:14:37.000
No, no. But still, but this idea of important,
00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:40.059
I'm actually going to bring another person in.
00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:41.940
So Randall Blake was my mentor. Yeah. And he
00:14:41.940 --> 00:14:45.919
had his nature paper in 70s, how adaptation affects.
00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:49.120
Being consciously aware of a stimulus changes
00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:52.259
how well you adapt to the stimulus or not. And
00:14:52.259 --> 00:14:57.000
without going into the details, he realized he
00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:00.360
was wrong and then spent a big effort of one
00:15:00.360 --> 00:15:03.620
documenting why it was wrong, why it was different,
00:15:03.799 --> 00:15:06.320
and then making the big efforts to get it published
00:15:06.320 --> 00:15:09.259
in a prominent place. And we did that. And how
00:15:09.259 --> 00:15:11.679
much effort he put in to make sure that that
00:15:11.679 --> 00:15:13.259
correction is out there. The correction was there.
00:15:13.480 --> 00:15:17.700
It was really like... good mentoring to show
00:15:17.700 --> 00:15:20.580
that's a true scientist you're after the truth
00:15:20.580 --> 00:15:22.340
it's not about you he wasn't defensive he wanted
00:15:22.340 --> 00:15:24.500
to make sure it was almost going the other direction
00:15:24.500 --> 00:15:26.600
he wanted to make sure that correction was there
00:15:26.600 --> 00:15:29.000
and it sticks unlike my correction which didn't
00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:32.000
stick he's actually you know stuck so you're
00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:34.379
comfortable with being wrong you embrace it I
00:15:34.379 --> 00:15:37.279
think maybe it's a luxury of being tenured I
00:15:37.279 --> 00:15:41.360
want to admit that but to me being wrong is the
00:15:41.360 --> 00:15:44.019
only way you do learning When we do learning,
00:15:44.240 --> 00:15:47.200
it's a kid learning to walk. There's no way to
00:15:47.200 --> 00:15:49.399
learn to walk without messing up a bunch of times.
00:15:49.519 --> 00:15:51.620
So why would science be any different than that?
00:15:51.740 --> 00:15:54.840
So I think we need to... Well, and maybe I often
00:15:54.840 --> 00:15:57.500
say, we're supposedly studying the most complex
00:15:57.500 --> 00:16:01.460
thing in the universe, the known universe. And
00:16:01.460 --> 00:16:04.700
we have our theories. And the chances that they
00:16:04.700 --> 00:16:06.659
would be right must be pretty small, really,
00:16:06.779 --> 00:16:09.860
ultimately. And so to get too married to them,
00:16:09.919 --> 00:16:11.919
it should be the case that we're wrong a lot
00:16:11.919 --> 00:16:13.639
of the time. And that should be fine, right?
00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:15.840
Because that's the truth. And what's even better
00:16:15.840 --> 00:16:19.610
is who shows you wrong is your student. Yes.
00:16:19.610 --> 00:16:23.029
I'm being able to hear that. And provide an environment
00:16:23.029 --> 00:16:25.470
where they can tell you that too, right? Because
00:16:25.470 --> 00:16:28.490
that's another really key part, which is if people
00:16:28.490 --> 00:16:31.330
are terrified of the PI, the leader in the lab.
00:16:31.409 --> 00:16:32.889
The student I have in mind was never terrified
00:16:32.889 --> 00:16:34.750
of anybody. So I just started my lab. Again,
00:16:34.809 --> 00:16:36.710
my lab wasn't ready, so it was provisional space.
00:16:37.090 --> 00:16:39.690
And my first, it was an RA. We became a grad
00:16:39.690 --> 00:16:43.460
student later on, Davis Glosser. And he was asking
00:16:43.460 --> 00:16:45.320
to do the certain surround task because that's
00:16:45.320 --> 00:16:47.080
what I was doing. He remembered the big stimuli
00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:49.659
that you couldn't see very well because of suppression.
00:16:50.039 --> 00:16:52.379
And he comes to my office and says, you're right,
00:16:52.419 --> 00:16:54.419
I cannot see these, but I found a way to cheat.
00:16:54.940 --> 00:16:57.100
And the way I cheat is the stimulus leaves a
00:16:57.100 --> 00:16:58.679
faint, when you show something on a screen that's
00:16:58.679 --> 00:17:01.360
bright, it leaves a faint afterimage on a screen.
00:17:01.639 --> 00:17:03.980
And he ignored the stimulus, but then he focused
00:17:03.980 --> 00:17:06.440
on the afterimage, and the afterimage went right,
00:17:06.700 --> 00:17:10.980
he will respond left. So he comes to me and...
00:17:11.730 --> 00:17:13.829
But it was a different person than maybe. And
00:17:13.829 --> 00:17:15.569
I said, no, no, you can be right. You stimulate
00:17:15.569 --> 00:17:18.750
on for 50 milliseconds. You're talking about
00:17:18.750 --> 00:17:21.390
motion after effect. That's too short. Too short
00:17:21.390 --> 00:17:23.690
to generate a judgment. And then so he kind of
00:17:23.690 --> 00:17:25.549
grumbled. He went back and showed a few days
00:17:25.549 --> 00:17:28.299
later with the data showing I was wrong. Good
00:17:28.299 --> 00:17:30.220
man. And they basically collected a bunch of
00:17:30.220 --> 00:17:33.519
data and shown that this is really a motion aftereffect.
00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:35.700
Then they published a paper, a PNAS, and they
00:17:35.700 --> 00:17:38.339
had recordings from area and T to show that this
00:17:38.339 --> 00:17:40.940
is actually in the brain, in the single neurons,
00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:44.259
that the motion aftereffect can happen two orders
00:17:44.259 --> 00:17:46.900
of magnitude, shorter exposure duration than
00:17:46.900 --> 00:17:48.819
we previously thought. Excellent. And it was
00:17:48.819 --> 00:17:50.900
me being wrong, me telling my student that he
00:17:50.900 --> 00:17:53.259
was wrong, him being stubborn enough to come
00:17:53.259 --> 00:17:56.079
back with the data. to show me that I was wrong.
00:17:56.180 --> 00:17:59.099
It's a great lesson. I mean, a lot of people
00:17:59.099 --> 00:18:01.099
who watch our podcast are graduate students,
00:18:01.099 --> 00:18:03.539
and I think that's a great, great lesson. Don't
00:18:03.539 --> 00:18:05.720
take no for an answer. If you're sure that you're
00:18:05.720 --> 00:18:07.920
right, go get some objective data. And especially
00:18:07.920 --> 00:18:09.859
if you're the one spending time in a lab and
00:18:09.859 --> 00:18:12.609
your mentor is spending time in an office, you're
00:18:12.609 --> 00:18:15.390
going to have a closer link to the ground truth
00:18:15.390 --> 00:18:18.569
than your mentor. Exactly. I want to take you
00:18:18.569 --> 00:18:22.109
right back to the start. You were born in the
00:18:22.109 --> 00:18:25.690
former Yugoslavia in Croatia. Tell us a little
00:18:25.690 --> 00:18:28.150
bit about growing up in Croatia, what framed
00:18:28.150 --> 00:18:30.509
your life, and where your initial passion for
00:18:30.509 --> 00:18:32.990
science came from. I'm glad you went to the past
00:18:32.990 --> 00:18:35.750
because this is something I could have never
00:18:35.750 --> 00:18:38.910
imagined. I'm here talking to you, talking about
00:18:38.910 --> 00:18:42.769
my research. Growing up in Yugoslavia, I remember
00:18:42.769 --> 00:18:46.289
it as being very nice. It was in the 80s. There
00:18:46.289 --> 00:18:49.569
was a lot of fun things going on. Science was
00:18:49.569 --> 00:18:54.259
not on my radar. Not at all. Nobody in my extended
00:18:54.259 --> 00:18:56.759
family, even now, has ever been to college. It
00:18:56.759 --> 00:19:00.059
was just not what we did. One grandfather was
00:19:00.059 --> 00:19:02.299
a fisherman. The other one was working in a vineyard.
00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:05.500
That's what we did. It was a nice life. It's
00:19:05.500 --> 00:19:07.700
a touristy place now, but it's where I grew up.
00:19:07.819 --> 00:19:09.519
So we would go to islands. We would have a lot
00:19:09.519 --> 00:19:12.099
of fun. We had occasional tourists. We got to
00:19:12.099 --> 00:19:14.900
meet people from different countries. And then
00:19:14.900 --> 00:19:17.319
things, as you know, changed when the war in
00:19:17.319 --> 00:19:19.779
Yugoslavia happened. And so that was during my
00:19:19.779 --> 00:19:23.000
high school. I was, you know, I like studying,
00:19:23.099 --> 00:19:25.160
I think in part because if I studied, I spent
00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:28.819
less time working in the fields. So I studied
00:19:28.819 --> 00:19:32.119
math and information science, and that's what
00:19:32.119 --> 00:19:34.599
I was doing in the war. And the really defining
00:19:34.599 --> 00:19:37.079
point was what is this opportunity to study abroad
00:19:37.079 --> 00:19:41.299
in America? And, you know, I didn't think much
00:19:41.299 --> 00:19:43.759
about it. I basically said, why not? Could I
00:19:43.759 --> 00:19:47.240
do this? I talked to my parents, and that really
00:19:47.240 --> 00:19:48.980
started the chain of events that took me here.
00:19:50.990 --> 00:19:54.450
The war is going on and you're a youngster in
00:19:54.450 --> 00:19:58.369
the former Yugoslavia. Did it have a big impact
00:19:58.369 --> 00:20:00.150
on you or was it kind of a way in the distance?
00:20:00.210 --> 00:20:03.089
It was close enough that we could hear it and
00:20:03.089 --> 00:20:06.710
we would spend nights in bomb shelters. And I
00:20:06.710 --> 00:20:09.180
don't know if this is being a teenager. I think
00:20:09.180 --> 00:20:10.779
it's maybe because it happened so gradually.
00:20:11.019 --> 00:20:14.019
It was a small thing there, a bigger thing there.
00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:19.599
And in Croatia, it was serious. But then it really
00:20:19.599 --> 00:20:22.180
got even more serious when it was in Bosnia.
00:20:24.630 --> 00:20:26.890
So I think it was, I don't want to minimize it.
00:20:26.990 --> 00:20:29.750
Yeah. But it wasn't, you know, we were seeing
00:20:29.750 --> 00:20:31.869
things on the TV that were not happening in the
00:20:31.869 --> 00:20:32.769
time I was living in it. Right where you were.
00:20:32.769 --> 00:20:34.930
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. I mean, obviously,
00:20:35.009 --> 00:20:37.130
there's parallels growing up in Ireland, which
00:20:37.130 --> 00:20:39.410
is that, you know, it was what was happening.
00:20:39.589 --> 00:20:42.970
It didn't seem so odd. And it's strange to be
00:20:42.970 --> 00:20:44.269
saying that. It seems hugely odd in retrospect,
00:20:44.410 --> 00:20:47.069
yeah. But it's, and I talk to people that sort
00:20:47.069 --> 00:20:49.390
of look at me like. That doesn't make sense.
00:20:49.569 --> 00:20:52.809
But it's sort of, you know, I mean, it is part
00:20:52.809 --> 00:20:55.670
of a human brain. Like we adapt to things that
00:20:55.670 --> 00:20:57.549
we probably shouldn't be adapting to. This is
00:20:57.549 --> 00:21:00.109
how we manage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, yeah.
00:21:00.990 --> 00:21:03.730
So you make this pretty extraordinary decision.
00:21:03.769 --> 00:21:07.190
I mean, how many people in your cohort? Took
00:21:07.190 --> 00:21:09.910
off to America to go to school. It's actually
00:21:09.910 --> 00:21:13.930
my small class of 34 of us did. So this woman
00:21:13.930 --> 00:21:16.349
shows up in that classroom, talks about this
00:21:16.349 --> 00:21:19.670
program. It was $4 ,500. And I'm sitting in the
00:21:19.670 --> 00:21:22.589
back because I'm always in the back. And I was
00:21:22.589 --> 00:21:24.269
not even paying attention because thinking this
00:21:24.269 --> 00:21:26.430
is not something we can afford or we can do.
00:21:26.769 --> 00:21:29.609
And on the bus ride home, I was like, why not?
00:21:29.930 --> 00:21:32.789
And I talked to my parents, and we found a way
00:21:32.789 --> 00:21:36.309
to make it work, and I did it. Give us a sense.
00:21:36.349 --> 00:21:40.289
I mean, $4 ,500 in Croatia in the 1980s was a
00:21:40.289 --> 00:21:41.750
fortune. It was more than my parents would make
00:21:41.750 --> 00:21:44.630
in a year. That's important to know. So my grandmother
00:21:44.630 --> 00:21:47.680
helped. It was part of a piece of land that she
00:21:47.680 --> 00:21:50.440
sold. So she sold a piece of land. It wasn't
00:21:50.440 --> 00:21:55.119
for that, but it was happening. This is a huge
00:21:55.119 --> 00:21:58.380
sacrifice for your family to send you for opportunity.
00:21:58.559 --> 00:22:03.140
Is that part of it? This was before internet.
00:22:03.440 --> 00:22:05.359
When I was there, I would call home maybe once
00:22:05.359 --> 00:22:07.200
a month, once every two months because it was
00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:09.019
expensive to call home. Extremely expensive.
00:22:09.279 --> 00:22:11.559
I actually liked it. I wanted to be independent.
00:22:12.700 --> 00:22:17.400
And I was in Missouri. in a town of 613 when
00:22:17.400 --> 00:22:19.259
I arrived, and it was 614 when I was there. Tell
00:22:19.259 --> 00:22:21.240
our people which college you went to. This was
00:22:21.240 --> 00:22:23.359
in high school. Oh, in high school. So it was
00:22:23.359 --> 00:22:26.140
a small, basically a village in Missouri. There's
00:22:26.140 --> 00:22:31.049
really no big towns around. I stood out. I can
00:22:31.049 --> 00:22:32.829
imagine. It was a tall person. I think at that
00:22:32.829 --> 00:22:35.069
time I had like a skin -tight red jeans. Yeah,
00:22:35.089 --> 00:22:36.430
yeah. And I'm in the middle of Missouri. You're
00:22:36.430 --> 00:22:38.789
very Euro. Very Euro. Everybody's wearing cowboy
00:22:38.789 --> 00:22:42.849
hats and jeans. But my host family was wonderful.
00:22:43.289 --> 00:22:47.779
The whole experience was very new. Yeah. And
00:22:47.779 --> 00:22:50.980
then what really changed everything is the Boy
00:22:50.980 --> 00:22:53.880
Scouts in the region wanted me to come over and
00:22:53.880 --> 00:22:56.500
just talk about my experience during the war.
00:22:56.740 --> 00:22:59.869
Yeah. And I said yes. It's going to be a pattern.
00:23:00.730 --> 00:23:03.369
And I go there. I actually don't remember what
00:23:03.369 --> 00:23:06.230
happened, but I remember somebody coming to me
00:23:06.230 --> 00:23:09.089
afterwards and introducing herself, and she was
00:23:09.089 --> 00:23:12.609
from Westminster College. Right. And why this
00:23:12.609 --> 00:23:14.609
matters, this was the college in Missouri, a
00:23:14.609 --> 00:23:16.970
small school, where Winston Churchill gave the
00:23:16.970 --> 00:23:19.609
Iron Curtain speech that is taken as the start
00:23:19.609 --> 00:23:22.470
of the Cold War. Truman invited him to give a
00:23:22.470 --> 00:23:25.829
speech there. They had a church. by Christopher
00:23:25.829 --> 00:23:28.049
Wren from London that had put it on campus because
00:23:28.049 --> 00:23:30.289
it was destroyed during the bombing. Yeah. And
00:23:30.289 --> 00:23:33.049
they also had a 31st section of Berlin Wall that
00:23:33.049 --> 00:23:35.490
they got when the wall fell down. And so they
00:23:35.490 --> 00:23:36.869
were very much worried. I was in this small town
00:23:36.869 --> 00:23:38.430
in Missouri. Missouri. And it's all because of
00:23:38.430 --> 00:23:40.549
Truman. Truman wanted to invite Churchill to
00:23:40.549 --> 00:23:43.089
a town where he didn't want the town to distract
00:23:43.089 --> 00:23:45.769
from the speech. That was the story. How interesting.
00:23:46.109 --> 00:23:49.190
And they, I guess, wanted somebody from that
00:23:49.190 --> 00:23:51.769
part of the world. I was there. I did okay in
00:23:51.769 --> 00:23:54.430
school. And I got a full -ride scholarship there.
00:23:55.130 --> 00:23:57.009
I worked in the Churchill Museum the entire time
00:23:57.009 --> 00:24:00.009
I was there. It was, again, not a great experience,
00:24:00.210 --> 00:24:02.789
but nothing would have happened had I not said
00:24:02.789 --> 00:24:05.250
yes to, okay, can you present it for Underboy
00:24:05.250 --> 00:24:10.430
Scouts? So life is rocking along and it's busy
00:24:10.430 --> 00:24:13.769
happening to you while there's no actual plan.
00:24:13.910 --> 00:24:15.369
There's no plan. It's just an opportunity showed
00:24:15.369 --> 00:24:18.150
up. Yeah. Yeah, why not? And it's door open.
00:24:19.640 --> 00:24:21.799
I called my parents and said, can we make this
00:24:21.799 --> 00:24:24.279
happen? I was late a few weeks to school because
00:24:24.279 --> 00:24:26.339
I couldn't get the money for the room and board
00:24:26.339 --> 00:24:29.660
and things like that. And again, I had wonderful
00:24:29.660 --> 00:24:31.799
teachers. I started studying math and physics
00:24:31.799 --> 00:24:33.640
because I was an Eastern European. Those were
00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:36.339
the proper subjects. Yeah, of course. I wanted
00:24:36.339 --> 00:24:38.339
to impress my parents and study some real sciences.
00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:41.960
And then things changed. How interesting. Amazing.
00:24:43.059 --> 00:24:46.819
A Croat in a small town in Missouri studying
00:24:46.819 --> 00:24:51.059
math and physics. And just embracing the opportunities
00:24:51.059 --> 00:24:54.779
that are there in front of you. When do you take
00:24:54.779 --> 00:24:58.380
the jag into science, neuroscience, psychophysics?
00:24:58.460 --> 00:25:03.000
What happens there? So I love this story. I had
00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:05.099
to take a psychology class because of requirements,
00:25:05.299 --> 00:25:08.240
and I was annoyed by it because, you know, social
00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:10.180
psychology, why do I care about social psychology?
00:25:10.519 --> 00:25:15.319
And the first class of this new course that I'm
00:25:15.319 --> 00:25:18.640
taking, we get there, there's no professor. And
00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:20.799
we were just waiting, and this guy shows up.
00:25:20.819 --> 00:25:23.319
He's wearing a white coat, doesn't say anything,
00:25:23.480 --> 00:25:26.240
sits down, and then looks around and points at
00:25:26.240 --> 00:25:28.119
a person in the back and says, you take your
00:25:28.119 --> 00:25:31.220
hat off. And the person takes his hat off and
00:25:31.220 --> 00:25:35.680
then looks around and requests escalate. He says,
00:25:35.759 --> 00:25:38.220
oh, you're sitting there. How about you move
00:25:38.220 --> 00:25:40.039
or go over and sit to the other side of the classroom?
00:25:40.339 --> 00:25:43.619
He points at me and said, well, it's kind of
00:25:43.619 --> 00:25:46.119
boring. We need somebody to kind of. make things
00:25:46.119 --> 00:25:47.819
more exciting. Can you come up for a class and
00:25:47.819 --> 00:25:51.140
dance? And so I get up and I dance very awkwardly,
00:25:51.140 --> 00:25:52.759
just kind of, you know, not really dancing. I'm,
00:25:52.799 --> 00:25:55.299
what is going on? Then he talks to another person.
00:25:55.380 --> 00:25:56.720
You're a much better dancer today, of course.
00:25:56.740 --> 00:25:59.180
Yeah. And I said, well, this person dancing alone,
00:25:59.319 --> 00:26:02.160
we need to, you know, that's not right. How can
00:26:02.160 --> 00:26:05.400
you come up and dance with him? And I'm dancing
00:26:05.400 --> 00:26:07.440
even more awkwardly then. Yeah. And then the
00:26:07.440 --> 00:26:09.839
final request was, well, there's no music. And
00:26:09.839 --> 00:26:12.319
he points somebody in the back and said, somebody
00:26:12.319 --> 00:26:14.579
should sing because they need music to dance.
00:26:15.390 --> 00:26:18.210
And the person gets up and starts singing. And
00:26:18.210 --> 00:26:20.390
then he turns to us and says, why did you do
00:26:20.390 --> 00:26:23.109
all this? Yeah. And then he introduced this study.
00:26:23.150 --> 00:26:24.910
You know where I'm going. Yeah, yeah. The Milgram
00:26:24.910 --> 00:26:26.670
study. The Milgram study. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
00:26:26.849 --> 00:26:29.069
And then he starts explaining the Milgram study.
00:26:29.289 --> 00:26:31.589
And I'm sitting there as a math and physics person.
00:26:31.750 --> 00:26:34.490
Yeah. Like, this is amazing. Let's tell people
00:26:34.490 --> 00:26:37.009
really quickly, just in case our audience, tell
00:26:37.009 --> 00:26:38.750
a little bit about the Milgram study, just very
00:26:38.750 --> 00:26:40.210
quickly. So this is one of those things where
00:26:40.210 --> 00:26:43.720
people would. They brought it in the lab. They
00:26:43.720 --> 00:26:46.859
think they're helping somebody study memory.
00:26:47.420 --> 00:26:50.259
So they're the subject. There's a person on the
00:26:50.259 --> 00:26:51.859
other side of the glass that's presumably the
00:26:51.859 --> 00:26:54.859
subject, but that's just an actor. And the job
00:26:54.859 --> 00:26:56.720
is if the person gets the memory task correct,
00:26:56.839 --> 00:26:58.920
nothing happens. If they make a mistake, you
00:26:58.920 --> 00:27:01.099
give them a small shock. If they make a second
00:27:01.099 --> 00:27:03.339
mistake, the shock gets bigger and bigger and
00:27:03.339 --> 00:27:05.480
bigger. And I think at some point there's like
00:27:05.480 --> 00:27:08.119
an X, double X, and triple X at the end. And
00:27:08.119 --> 00:27:10.279
the actor is doing a great job of shocks being
00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:12.829
more and more. Because the person's like screaming.
00:27:12.950 --> 00:27:14.289
Screaming. And at some point, the person stops
00:27:14.289 --> 00:27:18.069
moving. Yeah. And it looks like it's dead. And
00:27:18.069 --> 00:27:21.130
most people go all the way to the end. All the
00:27:21.130 --> 00:27:22.809
way to triple X. And then most people have reservations.
00:27:22.849 --> 00:27:25.569
They want to stop. They ask, can I do that? And
00:27:25.569 --> 00:27:27.549
the person tells them, no, you have to. This
00:27:27.549 --> 00:27:31.210
is your job. And it was really kind of like didn't
00:27:31.210 --> 00:27:33.410
make sense. Yeah. It's like, why would people
00:27:33.410 --> 00:27:36.109
do this? Why did we do this? Yeah, yeah. It's
00:27:36.109 --> 00:27:38.269
embarrassing to get up in front of a class and
00:27:38.269 --> 00:27:41.470
dance. And the answer was, this is human brain.
00:27:41.670 --> 00:27:43.990
It's a much more complicated mathematical equation.
00:27:44.529 --> 00:27:48.769
And that was it. And authority, right? Authority.
00:27:48.769 --> 00:27:50.690
And of course, this study was right after World
00:27:50.690 --> 00:27:52.509
War II. So there were a lot of questions how
00:27:52.509 --> 00:27:54.349
those horrible things happen in World War II.
00:27:54.829 --> 00:27:57.990
Why do some presumably good people were involved
00:27:57.990 --> 00:28:00.710
in things like that? And this whole broader context.
00:28:01.029 --> 00:28:02.529
And there are you now. You've just come from
00:28:02.529 --> 00:28:07.589
war -torn Yugoslavia. And again, I don't, you
00:28:07.589 --> 00:28:09.759
know. And fortunately, worse happened. And I
00:28:09.759 --> 00:28:11.220
didn't think, like, people from Serbia were all
00:28:11.220 --> 00:28:13.640
bad people. Yeah. And I still don't think that.
00:28:13.819 --> 00:28:15.599
And it was really, it was like, wow, there's
00:28:15.599 --> 00:28:17.859
something magical about the brain and really
00:28:17.859 --> 00:28:20.740
hard to understand. And that was it. Yeah. You
00:28:20.740 --> 00:28:23.000
were hooked then. It was one moment, one class.
00:28:23.500 --> 00:28:25.319
And I don't think I told my parents I switched
00:28:25.319 --> 00:28:28.079
my major. I think I kept math because math is
00:28:28.079 --> 00:28:31.180
amazing. And I think maybe a couple of years
00:28:31.180 --> 00:28:32.920
later, I told them, remember that physics thing?
00:28:33.019 --> 00:28:36.859
It's gone. And I substituted it in this airy
00:28:36.859 --> 00:28:39.099
-fairy psychology business. I had some explaining
00:28:39.099 --> 00:28:42.900
to do. I bet. But as you know, the brain is a
00:28:42.900 --> 00:28:45.079
computer. What's better? It's amazing what we're
00:28:45.079 --> 00:28:47.519
doing in science with nuclear science, with quantum
00:28:47.519 --> 00:28:50.059
technology. But think about the brain. There's
00:28:50.059 --> 00:28:51.700
nothing we know more intimately than our own
00:28:51.700 --> 00:28:54.039
brain and nothing that's so hard to understand.
00:28:54.160 --> 00:28:56.259
Things like consciousness, perception, emotion.
00:28:57.359 --> 00:28:59.640
So many people work on it, and it's still a mystery.
00:29:00.700 --> 00:29:06.099
Now, you know, this is a pivotal moment. And
00:29:06.099 --> 00:29:08.400
I think the number of people who have sat there
00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:10.079
and said there was a pivotal moment like that,
00:29:10.099 --> 00:29:12.839
and it's a beautiful story. But already now at
00:29:12.839 --> 00:29:14.859
that point, I just decided I'm going to be a
00:29:14.859 --> 00:29:17.490
scientist. Or was it more, I'm interested in
00:29:17.490 --> 00:29:19.730
this domain? When does that point happen? It's
00:29:19.730 --> 00:29:21.589
like, I need to be doing the guy doing the experiment.
00:29:21.589 --> 00:29:24.069
That's exciting. I wanted to be an actuary because
00:29:24.069 --> 00:29:26.509
I looked at a table of salaries at a college
00:29:26.509 --> 00:29:29.750
and actuary was near the top. That was my father
00:29:29.750 --> 00:29:31.970
wanted me to be an actuary for the exact same
00:29:31.970 --> 00:29:34.289
reason. I couldn't even imagine it. I went to
00:29:34.289 --> 00:29:36.210
Career Center. They had a list of salaries. There
00:29:36.210 --> 00:29:37.990
was like chemical engineering and things, but
00:29:37.990 --> 00:29:39.650
I couldn't do chemical engineering. And I said,
00:29:39.690 --> 00:29:41.589
what can you do with a math degree and actuary?
00:29:41.789 --> 00:29:44.049
I was like, okay, I'll do this. Because the idea
00:29:44.049 --> 00:29:46.450
was you go to school to make a living. Yeah,
00:29:46.470 --> 00:29:48.549
of course. And playing with numbers and getting
00:29:48.549 --> 00:29:50.509
paid for it seemed like a fun thing to do. Like
00:29:50.509 --> 00:29:53.849
a good idea, yeah. And then it was study abroad
00:29:53.849 --> 00:29:58.150
at Oxford. That was another, you know, I... Applied
00:29:58.150 --> 00:30:00.589
to study abroad. So you finished your undergrad.
00:30:00.869 --> 00:30:01.849
No, it was a junior year. I was still there.
00:30:02.069 --> 00:30:03.529
So you're still in your undergrad. So I didn't
00:30:03.529 --> 00:30:05.210
know much. The college was too small. There was
00:30:05.210 --> 00:30:08.049
only about 600 students at my college. It was
00:30:08.049 --> 00:30:09.829
some research. I had some wonderful professors,
00:30:09.970 --> 00:30:12.210
but not really anything at the sort of level.
00:30:12.210 --> 00:30:15.730
Not a big research engine, yeah. But then studying
00:30:15.730 --> 00:30:18.410
abroad at Oxford, there was a scholarship I applied
00:30:18.410 --> 00:30:22.230
for. I got it. And there was this postdoc. And
00:30:22.230 --> 00:30:23.529
at that time, I didn't know what a postdoc was.
00:30:23.609 --> 00:30:26.480
I thought I was working with a faculty. And we
00:30:26.480 --> 00:30:28.599
just had these discussions about consciousness,
00:30:28.700 --> 00:30:32.720
perception. Name was Ronald Baddeley, David Baddeley's
00:30:32.720 --> 00:30:35.059
son. Yeah, yeah, yeah. David Baddeley, famous
00:30:35.059 --> 00:30:37.839
for working memory. But his son is a really good
00:30:37.839 --> 00:30:39.660
scientist. He's a professor at, I think, Sussex
00:30:39.660 --> 00:30:41.579
right now. And so he was a postdoc at Oxford.
00:30:41.640 --> 00:30:44.140
I didn't know that he wasn't a professor. And
00:30:44.140 --> 00:30:46.460
it was just the papers he had me read and then
00:30:46.460 --> 00:30:49.079
discuss because of the tutorial system. It was
00:30:49.079 --> 00:30:50.720
this one -on -one back -and -forth discussion
00:30:50.720 --> 00:30:53.700
was, okay, I want to be a scientist. That's when
00:30:53.700 --> 00:30:54.779
it happened. And that's what has happened for
00:30:54.779 --> 00:30:58.339
that. Good academic lineage then, so the Badalis
00:30:58.339 --> 00:31:02.259
put you in that way. So that's a point that penny
00:31:02.259 --> 00:31:04.240
drops, like this is what I'm actually in school
00:31:04.240 --> 00:31:06.640
to do. I want to do, yeah. Because I got to see
00:31:06.640 --> 00:31:09.400
exposure matters. Like being in a liberal arts
00:31:09.400 --> 00:31:11.940
school, I really liked what my professors did,
00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:14.700
but I didn't get to see anybody do science. And
00:31:14.700 --> 00:31:16.519
so when you think about sort of opening doors
00:31:16.519 --> 00:31:19.500
for kids and students, bringing them into labs.
00:31:20.400 --> 00:31:22.480
Like being at Oxford and seeing what scientists
00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:25.380
do, how they interact, how they talk, what problems
00:31:25.380 --> 00:31:28.299
they solve. It was just seeing that and not reading
00:31:28.299 --> 00:31:30.079
it on some table and saying, okay, this is what
00:31:30.079 --> 00:31:32.319
I want to do. And maybe a little bit too, just
00:31:32.319 --> 00:31:34.319
actually realizing they're just the regular humans.
00:31:34.420 --> 00:31:36.240
They're not that different to me. They're not
00:31:36.240 --> 00:31:38.400
some rare species or something. And it probably
00:31:38.400 --> 00:31:40.039
helped that I was working with a postdoc who
00:31:40.039 --> 00:31:42.339
wasn't as sort of intimidating. A little fin.
00:31:42.339 --> 00:31:45.200
Yeah, yeah. Not an Oxford Don or something. And
00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:46.980
of course, there's a sound, as you know, like
00:31:46.980 --> 00:31:49.960
just walking around. Like you feel slightly smarter
00:31:49.960 --> 00:31:53.160
just walking around Oxford than any other student.
00:31:53.160 --> 00:31:55.160
This is why we fill our house up with books that
00:31:55.160 --> 00:31:56.779
we've never read. It just makes you feel smarter.
00:31:58.319 --> 00:32:00.839
That's great. So one year in England and then
00:32:00.839 --> 00:32:03.160
back to Westminster? Back to Westminster and
00:32:03.160 --> 00:32:05.759
then applied to grad schools. I mostly got rejected
00:32:05.759 --> 00:32:08.220
because I went to a small school, didn't have
00:32:08.220 --> 00:32:11.400
research papers, but I got a Vanderbilt. Which
00:32:11.400 --> 00:32:12.980
is not a bad place. Which is not a bad place.
00:32:13.539 --> 00:32:17.140
I can't believe I'm saying this on camera. So
00:32:17.140 --> 00:32:19.980
a year later, my mentor is walking me around,
00:32:20.079 --> 00:32:22.759
Joe Lappin, and he talks to John Koss, who you
00:32:22.759 --> 00:32:25.509
know. And it says John. I was like, here's Duje.
00:32:25.630 --> 00:32:28.950
He had a recommendation letter from David Baddeley.
00:32:30.069 --> 00:32:33.710
And I said, Joe, that wasn't David. That was
00:32:33.710 --> 00:32:36.069
his son. So I don't know if him thinking that
00:32:36.069 --> 00:32:41.690
was David that actually got me in. But it was
00:32:41.690 --> 00:32:43.589
still. And, of course, I told Joe. I was like,
00:32:43.690 --> 00:32:47.410
oh, it was his son. But it was there. And then,
00:32:47.450 --> 00:32:49.430
you know, having wonderful mentors. Randolph
00:32:49.430 --> 00:32:52.009
Blake was one. Yeah, Randolph Blake, yeah. And
00:32:52.009 --> 00:32:54.539
that was it. There was no turning back. Exceptional,
00:32:54.539 --> 00:32:57.200
right. So really now you're at an absolute research
00:32:57.200 --> 00:32:59.700
one environment where some of the world's greatest
00:32:59.700 --> 00:33:02.700
psychophysicists and anatomists like John and
00:33:02.700 --> 00:33:04.940
so on. So you really landed into an intellectual
00:33:04.940 --> 00:33:07.400
environment. John was amazing. I would take his
00:33:07.400 --> 00:33:09.819
class. I like the content, but the stories you
00:33:09.819 --> 00:33:12.880
would tell. The early days of neuroscience and
00:33:12.880 --> 00:33:15.940
neuroanatomy, it was Wild West. They had no idea
00:33:15.940 --> 00:33:18.900
whatever. They didn't know what they were after,
00:33:19.180 --> 00:33:21.099
but they would look at a part of their brain
00:33:21.099 --> 00:33:23.180
and just find out all kinds of new things. And
00:33:23.180 --> 00:33:25.519
to me, it was like the frontier. It was like
00:33:25.519 --> 00:33:29.700
the Wild West of neuroscience. So hearing John's
00:33:29.700 --> 00:33:31.940
story, and John used to play basketball with
00:33:31.940 --> 00:33:34.940
us. I remember we did his hip replacement at
00:33:34.940 --> 00:33:37.980
70. His big goal was to go play basketball. To
00:33:37.980 --> 00:33:39.240
go back to playing basketball. And so we played
00:33:39.240 --> 00:33:43.259
one half court with him. But it was really that
00:33:43.259 --> 00:33:44.680
environment. Did he have a good shot? He was
00:33:44.680 --> 00:33:47.930
actually really good. I mean, you know. I was
00:33:47.930 --> 00:33:50.630
20 -something, he was 70, but I enjoyed playing
00:33:50.630 --> 00:33:53.710
with him. Outstanding. But you mentioned psychophysics,
00:33:53.710 --> 00:33:56.829
and I think to me that was, I think, the biggest
00:33:56.829 --> 00:33:59.950
training was really the emphasis on sort of all
00:33:59.950 --> 00:34:02.029
-cool psychophysics got me thinking really about
00:34:02.029 --> 00:34:04.950
experimental design, the details, the level of
00:34:04.950 --> 00:34:08.530
control, and phenomenology. It's like, you know,
00:34:08.570 --> 00:34:11.849
we study brains, we study things that we use
00:34:11.849 --> 00:34:15.139
all day, every day. So what I really got... sort
00:34:15.139 --> 00:34:17.280
of ingrained in me is like nothing about research
00:34:17.280 --> 00:34:19.420
like when you go in a lab is when you walk to
00:34:19.420 --> 00:34:21.780
your lab you can look around and notice things
00:34:21.780 --> 00:34:25.340
and use that insight in the lab when you get
00:34:25.340 --> 00:34:28.059
to your office. You know what fascinates me and
00:34:28.059 --> 00:34:30.840
maybe this is personalizing it a bit is you know
00:34:30.840 --> 00:34:35.840
you arrive here in the United States from Croatia
00:34:35.840 --> 00:34:39.780
from Yugoslavia as a youngster And here you are.
00:34:40.440 --> 00:34:43.699
What year were we talking about? 1994. 1994.
00:34:44.119 --> 00:34:45.340
So it was Croatia then, yeah. Yeah, Croatia.
00:34:45.440 --> 00:34:49.460
So we're 32 years out. Are you the same person
00:34:49.460 --> 00:34:52.440
today? Yes. You are? That's an easy answer. You
00:34:52.440 --> 00:34:55.539
must have pondered what your trajectory would
00:34:55.539 --> 00:34:57.500
have been had you stayed at home. Do you think
00:34:57.500 --> 00:34:59.579
you would have found your way to science anyway?
00:34:59.920 --> 00:35:04.309
I don't know. I say definitely no, but not as
00:35:04.309 --> 00:35:06.969
a bad thing. What I like about science is...
00:35:07.130 --> 00:35:09.369
problem solving and tinkering with things and
00:35:09.369 --> 00:35:11.889
figuring out how things work. And there are many
00:35:11.889 --> 00:35:15.110
ways to do the same thing. So I don't think it's
00:35:15.110 --> 00:35:16.690
possible. So maybe you wouldn't have been a neuroscientist,
00:35:16.730 --> 00:35:19.289
but you'd be exercising the same... Something,
00:35:19.449 --> 00:35:22.690
yeah. I like woodworking. So building a treehouse,
00:35:22.730 --> 00:35:24.710
to me, it's the same thing as going to a lab.
00:35:24.730 --> 00:35:26.510
You have a goal, you're trying to figure out
00:35:26.510 --> 00:35:31.150
the constraints. To me, it's not, you know, somebody
00:35:31.150 --> 00:35:32.869
who's very skilled with a hand, like a skilled
00:35:32.869 --> 00:35:35.269
carpenter, they can have just the same insight
00:35:35.269 --> 00:35:38.130
as a top -level scientist. It's just one, you
00:35:38.130 --> 00:35:40.110
know, gets more visible than the other. You said
00:35:40.110 --> 00:35:42.489
a few times as we were going through there that
00:35:42.489 --> 00:35:45.449
one of the things is saying yes. Tell us about
00:35:45.449 --> 00:35:47.130
that. Why is that a guiding, is it a guiding
00:35:47.130 --> 00:35:50.409
principle or a... Fling it at the wall and see
00:35:50.409 --> 00:35:51.909
what happens. Okay, I'll start with negative
00:35:51.909 --> 00:35:53.730
first. It gets me in trouble. It does? Because
00:35:53.730 --> 00:35:55.909
you can say yes, but then the number of hours
00:35:55.909 --> 00:35:58.730
in a day doesn't change. That comes from a generosity
00:35:58.730 --> 00:36:00.969
of spirit, I'll just say. Because I obviously
00:36:00.969 --> 00:36:02.869
have gotten the opportunity to work with you.
00:36:02.889 --> 00:36:07.530
And I know how you're the one who takes on the
00:36:07.530 --> 00:36:09.590
heavy lifting a lot of the time when nobody else
00:36:09.590 --> 00:36:11.389
wants to step up to it. But sometimes I drop
00:36:11.389 --> 00:36:14.929
things because it's still, yeah. But I think,
00:36:14.929 --> 00:36:17.889
you know. So what's amazing about universities
00:36:17.889 --> 00:36:20.329
is how many different opportunities we have around
00:36:20.329 --> 00:36:23.150
us. What's great about comparing a university
00:36:23.150 --> 00:36:25.309
to a company which have a much more narrow mission,
00:36:25.590 --> 00:36:27.489
our mission is not narrow. Our mission is broad.
00:36:27.809 --> 00:36:30.010
And I don't think there's anything else in society
00:36:30.010 --> 00:36:32.090
that has as broad of a mission as universities.
00:36:32.610 --> 00:36:35.929
So if you hear... It also means you have opportunities
00:36:35.929 --> 00:36:38.269
to be involved in many different things. And
00:36:38.269 --> 00:36:40.349
the only way you can do that is by saying yes.
00:36:40.530 --> 00:36:42.989
So the Boy Scout story was really one of those
00:36:42.989 --> 00:36:45.210
yeses that kind of changed the course of my life.
00:36:45.590 --> 00:36:50.250
Here, a yes at university is just something that
00:36:50.250 --> 00:36:52.730
kind of allows you to take advantage of the environment
00:36:52.730 --> 00:36:55.530
we are. And I really, especially right now with
00:36:55.530 --> 00:36:58.369
people asking questions, are universities really
00:36:58.369 --> 00:37:02.420
worth the expense and so on? And to me, the answer
00:37:02.420 --> 00:37:04.880
is an easy yes. Because there's really not a
00:37:04.880 --> 00:37:06.539
place in the world that can challenge you in
00:37:06.539 --> 00:37:08.460
this way. I think it's still for our students
00:37:08.460 --> 00:37:10.739
or for our faculty to really take advantage of
00:37:10.739 --> 00:37:13.519
that. And that's a different discussion. But
00:37:13.519 --> 00:37:15.019
I think there's really nothing else in society
00:37:15.019 --> 00:37:17.739
that gives you those opportunities. And you can
00:37:17.739 --> 00:37:20.639
only, you know, taking on a student, taking on
00:37:20.639 --> 00:37:22.780
collaboration, taking on an administrative role,
00:37:22.860 --> 00:37:25.059
coming to this interview, all of these things
00:37:25.059 --> 00:37:28.599
require saying yes. And if you say no, you have
00:37:28.599 --> 00:37:31.570
more free time. And maybe you can write a paper
00:37:31.570 --> 00:37:34.170
that you really – it's on your back burner. But
00:37:34.170 --> 00:37:36.269
I don't think you really get the most out of
00:37:36.269 --> 00:37:38.610
university. Embracing the big intellectual –
00:37:38.610 --> 00:37:41.809
go back to defending the universities, right?
00:37:41.889 --> 00:37:44.590
Universities – we won't get too political. But
00:37:44.590 --> 00:37:48.650
the very premise of the academy is under threat
00:37:48.650 --> 00:37:52.210
right now and under attack. And people would
00:37:52.210 --> 00:37:54.750
– Say, you know, there's legitimate claims that
00:37:54.750 --> 00:37:57.409
in the modern environment, with the way it's
00:37:57.409 --> 00:37:59.829
evolving, with the technologies that are available,
00:38:00.090 --> 00:38:05.150
that what we do is not as relevant. Okay. Well,
00:38:05.210 --> 00:38:07.329
I think I'll flip your question to a different
00:38:07.329 --> 00:38:10.550
one, which is I think the same one is, you know,
00:38:10.570 --> 00:38:13.449
I fundamentally believe in the value of universities
00:38:13.449 --> 00:38:15.769
and kind of environments where we really, you
00:38:15.769 --> 00:38:18.650
know, question things, study things. But I think
00:38:18.650 --> 00:38:22.780
it's on us to convey that to the world. I don't
00:38:22.780 --> 00:38:25.239
think we've done as good of a job of saying that,
00:38:25.380 --> 00:38:27.400
and I don't think it's done as good of a job
00:38:27.400 --> 00:38:29.539
of maybe implementing that in our daily lives.
00:38:29.679 --> 00:38:34.760
I think it's gotten harder to be... But is the
00:38:34.760 --> 00:38:39.559
playing field level... I mean, we're academics,
00:38:39.800 --> 00:38:43.599
right? We don't own TV stations. We're here,
00:38:43.619 --> 00:38:45.460
we're in a podcast, it's great. We can spread
00:38:45.460 --> 00:38:47.920
our word. But, you know, we don't own major media
00:38:47.920 --> 00:38:51.159
outlets the way some of, let's say, the interests
00:38:51.159 --> 00:38:53.440
on the other side of the argument do. And they
00:38:53.440 --> 00:38:56.079
can really project their message much more strongly
00:38:56.079 --> 00:38:59.000
than we can. And they're maybe not necessarily
00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:02.619
as bound to facts or don't feel the need to be,
00:39:02.760 --> 00:39:06.599
you know. as concrete and factual? In the current
00:39:06.599 --> 00:39:09.519
time, the playing field is completely uneven.
00:39:10.059 --> 00:39:13.760
Because to get a message quickly, you need access
00:39:13.760 --> 00:39:16.420
to all the things you said. But I'm sort of thinking
00:39:16.420 --> 00:39:19.619
long term, the best way we get a message is that
00:39:19.619 --> 00:39:22.639
everybody that comes here has the kind of experience
00:39:22.639 --> 00:39:25.090
that's transformative. to the degree that's possible,
00:39:25.269 --> 00:39:27.349
and they can go out there and be our messengers.
00:39:27.989 --> 00:39:31.369
And again, I'm sort of flipping this on us. What
00:39:31.369 --> 00:39:33.570
can we do? I can't control what somebody on TV
00:39:33.570 --> 00:39:36.510
says, but we can control what we can do here.
00:39:36.710 --> 00:39:38.610
So if kids come here, I still call them kids
00:39:38.610 --> 00:39:41.050
even though they're adults. I'm that old now.
00:39:41.329 --> 00:39:44.710
If they come here and we give them the kind of
00:39:44.710 --> 00:39:47.130
experience that really changes how they view
00:39:47.130 --> 00:39:49.090
the world, allows them to learn about themselves,
00:39:49.469 --> 00:39:52.599
allows them to do new things, I was in the dean
00:39:52.599 --> 00:39:56.079
role a couple years ago, and I had this sort
00:39:56.079 --> 00:39:57.900
of privilege to talk to the incoming students.
00:39:58.440 --> 00:40:02.019
And in that speech, I really wanted to say, you've
00:40:02.019 --> 00:40:05.420
got to try things. You have so many different
00:40:05.420 --> 00:40:07.219
things you can do at this university. And if
00:40:07.219 --> 00:40:08.840
you just come here and you go to every class
00:40:08.840 --> 00:40:12.800
and you get 4 .0 GPA, you did not take a full
00:40:12.800 --> 00:40:15.659
advantage on the environment. And so really,
00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:18.750
we provide so much for our students. But I think
00:40:18.750 --> 00:40:20.610
with the focus on things that can show up on
00:40:20.610 --> 00:40:22.090
your resume, everybody's worried about their
00:40:22.090 --> 00:40:26.329
grades and putting things on their CV is maybe
00:40:26.329 --> 00:40:28.269
the sort of exploration that universities are
00:40:28.269 --> 00:40:30.619
very well suited to provide. a lot of students
00:40:30.619 --> 00:40:33.679
don't take advantage of. One of the best things
00:40:33.679 --> 00:40:35.500
about being a dean is learning about humanities
00:40:35.500 --> 00:40:38.300
and social sciences. And I was actually embarrassed
00:40:38.300 --> 00:40:40.280
that I was at this university for almost 20 years
00:40:40.280 --> 00:40:42.699
and I didn't know about as much wonderful work
00:40:42.699 --> 00:40:44.900
that's been done on that part of the academia.
00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:47.780
So I'm almost as guilty of sort of going into
00:40:47.780 --> 00:40:50.639
my science bubble and being there and not really
00:40:50.639 --> 00:40:53.900
expanding my world. And of course, that's easier
00:40:53.900 --> 00:40:55.699
said than done because you have so much time.
00:40:55.719 --> 00:40:59.250
You have deadlines and things like that. So maybe
00:40:59.250 --> 00:41:00.909
I'll challenge you a little bit because you did
00:41:00.909 --> 00:41:05.269
say, and I think there's a paradox here, right?
00:41:05.690 --> 00:41:08.070
You did say before, you know, you go to university
00:41:08.070 --> 00:41:12.719
to get skilled, to get a job. And at the same
00:41:12.719 --> 00:41:15.840
time, right, some of that's driving the part
00:41:15.840 --> 00:41:18.179
where youngsters won't come and study literature
00:41:18.179 --> 00:41:20.940
or ancient history or that because it doesn't,
00:41:20.940 --> 00:41:22.699
unless you go into the academy, it doesn't lead
00:41:22.699 --> 00:41:26.079
to a job. And I suppose in some ways, if you
00:41:26.079 --> 00:41:28.110
think about like the... the philosophy of university
00:41:28.110 --> 00:41:32.690
was actually you parked the idea maybe of the
00:41:32.820 --> 00:41:35.400
utilitarian aspect of needing to get a job from
00:41:35.400 --> 00:41:37.559
it. And you went to learn and to expand your
00:41:37.559 --> 00:41:39.559
mind and to open up a set of skills for yourself.
00:41:39.699 --> 00:41:42.599
And yes, those things would be useful for a job.
00:41:43.239 --> 00:41:45.739
Now, where are you on that axis? You picked up
00:41:45.739 --> 00:41:48.099
on it. Yeah. And you're correct. They're really
00:41:48.099 --> 00:41:51.159
competing demands. Yeah. Because if you really
00:41:51.159 --> 00:41:52.800
want a sort of vocational training, you will
00:41:52.800 --> 00:41:55.380
focus on exactly the same thing on a job that
00:41:55.380 --> 00:41:58.719
you want to go after. Yeah. And in Croatia and
00:41:58.719 --> 00:42:02.280
sort of a lot of sort of Eastern part of Europe
00:42:02.280 --> 00:42:06.699
is even in high school, you will pick a vocation.
00:42:06.980 --> 00:42:09.579
So you will go either, mine was focused on math,
00:42:09.699 --> 00:42:11.960
but a lot of my friends went to study for cooks
00:42:11.960 --> 00:42:14.980
and drivers and electricians. Into the trades.
00:42:15.159 --> 00:42:17.400
Into the trades. And majority of high schools
00:42:17.400 --> 00:42:19.139
were just that. So that kind of sets you on a
00:42:19.139 --> 00:42:22.989
path. And I think the answer is we need both.
00:42:23.429 --> 00:42:26.289
We need to really recognize that the main reasons
00:42:26.289 --> 00:42:27.750
that people want to get a college degree because
00:42:27.750 --> 00:42:30.489
there's a value to it, that you can provide for
00:42:30.489 --> 00:42:34.030
yourself in a way that maybe without a college
00:42:34.030 --> 00:42:36.250
degree, we have fewer options. And I think that
00:42:36.250 --> 00:42:38.989
has to still be primary. Sure, yeah. I mean,
00:42:38.989 --> 00:42:40.809
it's the pragmatic solution. It is that. But
00:42:40.809 --> 00:42:42.869
four years is a long time. That's my argument.
00:42:43.269 --> 00:42:45.849
And I also had the pleasure, like when you talk
00:42:45.849 --> 00:42:48.690
to alumni, most of them are not in the areas
00:42:48.690 --> 00:42:50.590
where they actually studied yeah the successful
00:42:50.590 --> 00:42:52.530
ones that we you know they come back and we get
00:42:52.530 --> 00:42:55.110
to talk to yeah they're often they've studied
00:42:55.110 --> 00:42:57.849
history and now they're like you know work in
00:42:57.849 --> 00:43:00.550
a law firm or i mean that's a clear link there
00:43:00.550 --> 00:43:02.289
but that's what i was talking about a couple
00:43:02.289 --> 00:43:04.869
weeks ago uh so i think we need well i'm ostensibly
00:43:04.869 --> 00:43:06.889
a neuroscientist and i studied english in history
00:43:06.889 --> 00:43:11.090
so i think we really you know we need to what
00:43:11.090 --> 00:43:13.210
should we teach our students you know really
00:43:13.210 --> 00:43:15.570
hard to think critically how to take advantage
00:43:15.570 --> 00:43:17.929
of opportunities, how to study, how to learn,
00:43:18.070 --> 00:43:21.050
and then pick up a set of skills that will give
00:43:21.050 --> 00:43:23.309
you more options when you leave the university.
00:43:23.630 --> 00:43:26.170
And I think this last part is the vocational
00:43:26.170 --> 00:43:29.360
part. Yeah, I agree. And again, this is just
00:43:29.360 --> 00:43:32.300
leaning in a little bit, which is that if you're
00:43:32.300 --> 00:43:34.820
only at university to put in four years to get
00:43:34.820 --> 00:43:36.239
to a point where you have a piece of paper that
00:43:36.239 --> 00:43:38.199
gets you a job, you've definitely got the wrong
00:43:38.199 --> 00:43:41.480
idea about what a university is. If we could
00:43:41.480 --> 00:43:43.659
get back, I think, to a point where people are
00:43:43.659 --> 00:43:46.829
thinking more about going to a university to
00:43:46.829 --> 00:43:51.090
become a deeper, better thinker, an intellectual,
00:43:51.389 --> 00:43:55.309
a reader, an embracer of knowledge, then those
00:43:55.309 --> 00:43:58.849
other things will come for free. And I think
00:43:58.849 --> 00:44:00.530
having a system where somebody who's really,
00:44:00.610 --> 00:44:02.469
I know what I want to do, you can go to a two
00:44:02.469 --> 00:44:04.750
-year institution and get the right training
00:44:04.750 --> 00:44:08.789
and then doing that sooner. So I think having,
00:44:09.110 --> 00:44:10.869
and I think you're right, going back to the first
00:44:10.869 --> 00:44:12.989
question is, I think it's on us to really...
00:44:13.369 --> 00:44:15.949
show the value. I think there's something to
00:44:15.949 --> 00:44:18.590
be said. I think right now there's sort of, it's
00:44:18.590 --> 00:44:20.869
harder for us to make that case because there's
00:44:20.869 --> 00:44:24.010
so many other voices. Yeah. And, you know, on
00:44:24.010 --> 00:44:27.150
TV stations and so on. But I see this as a long
00:44:27.150 --> 00:44:29.030
game. I think, you know, we are both old enough
00:44:29.030 --> 00:44:31.510
to know that things change and things, just because
00:44:31.510 --> 00:44:33.269
things... We've seen this before. We've seen
00:44:33.269 --> 00:44:36.289
this before. Do you worry a little bit that it's
00:44:36.289 --> 00:44:40.449
different now? The vitriol, the level of anti
00:44:40.449 --> 00:44:45.789
-science, anti -intellectual, It does feel different.
00:44:46.590 --> 00:44:49.829
And there is, you know, when we live in an age
00:44:49.829 --> 00:44:52.849
where being an expert is necessarily a compliment.
00:44:53.250 --> 00:44:57.670
No, right. And so I think, you know, so the answer
00:44:57.670 --> 00:45:01.329
is yes. Last question. As a human being, what
00:45:01.329 --> 00:45:03.070
are you most proud of that's not one of your
00:45:03.070 --> 00:45:06.829
papers? That's an easy one. My kids. Your kids.
00:45:06.889 --> 00:45:09.880
Yeah. Okay. It is... And maybe I'll link you
00:45:09.880 --> 00:45:11.800
back to neuroscience. You know, when you take
00:45:11.800 --> 00:45:13.500
your classes, there's some areas that don't find
00:45:13.500 --> 00:45:15.119
very interesting. So when I was in grad school,
00:45:15.440 --> 00:45:18.579
developmental psychology, yeah, it's like, ah,
00:45:18.679 --> 00:45:21.159
who could care less about it? And then you have
00:45:21.159 --> 00:45:24.980
kids. And then you just realize, like, this growing
00:45:24.980 --> 00:45:27.239
up and how to learn about the world and how to
00:45:27.239 --> 00:45:29.880
learn basic things when they're babies. And then
00:45:29.880 --> 00:45:31.519
they go to puberty and then sort of figure out
00:45:31.519 --> 00:45:33.960
how everything works around. It is one of the
00:45:33.960 --> 00:45:36.440
most impressive. It's not a surprise that for
00:45:36.440 --> 00:45:39.519
humans it takes us so long to mature. And think
00:45:39.519 --> 00:45:41.619
about how much learning, how much brain plasticity
00:45:41.619 --> 00:45:44.380
happens in those young brains. And especially
00:45:44.380 --> 00:45:46.579
with today's world, how much things are changing.
00:45:46.800 --> 00:45:49.179
Yeah, how much information they have to consume.
00:45:49.280 --> 00:45:52.380
Some much more interesting developmental processes
00:45:52.380 --> 00:45:55.079
because of having kids. So go back to, it's such
00:45:55.079 --> 00:45:57.000
an easy answer. It's really my kids. It's your
00:45:57.000 --> 00:45:59.920
children. Do you? I could do this all day. I
00:45:59.920 --> 00:46:02.820
have the great privilege of being able to have
00:46:02.820 --> 00:46:05.719
conversations with you. Very regularly. But I
00:46:05.719 --> 00:46:08.599
think this has been a fantastic few minutes.
00:46:09.340 --> 00:46:11.360
Really a pleasure to have you here and introduce
00:46:11.360 --> 00:46:13.579
you to our audience here at Neuroscience Perspectives.
00:46:13.599 --> 00:46:15.380
Thanks for coming. Thanks, John. It does feel
00:46:15.380 --> 00:46:16.900
like it was only two minutes, but it was a full
00:46:16.900 --> 00:46:17.159
hour.