#7 – Nick Yeung: Thinking about thinking

Nick Yeung is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, studying the metacognitive and neural mechanisms of human thinking and reasoning. In particular, his research examines how people evaluate their decisions, why our minds wander, and how different cognitive functions are coordinated through attentional mechanisms. TIMESTAMPS (00:26) – Nature of thoughts (08:40) – Thoughts and the self (20:12) – Dreaming, mindwandering, and creativity (23:04) – Metacognition (31:23) – Neural basis of metacognition (35:40) – Metacognition and learning (37:50) – Experimental approaches (41:10) – Do animals have thoughts (43:47) – Computational models (51:16) – Psychology vs neuroscience (54:24) – Consciousness (58:02) – Free will (1:01:26) – Advice for young scientists