We're All Living in Different Realities (Literally)
The Brain's Reality: How Our Perception Shapes Our World
In this episode of PsyberSpace, host Leslie Poston explores how our brains create different realities through predictive processing. The discussion includes concepts like the McGurk effect, the role of attention, and the impact of body states on perception. Poston explains how memory is a reconstruction influenced by current priors and how culture and language shape our prediction engines. The episode also addresses the implications for clinical settings, media influence, and the rise of DeepFakes. With practical tips for improving our prediction accuracy and updating our beliefs, this episode challenges the notion of objective perception and highlights the ethical stakes of our constructed realities.
00:00 Introduction: Living in Different Realities
00:20 The McGurk Effect: Seeing is Believing
03:47 Predictive Processing: How Brains Build Reality
09:10 Attention and Perception: The Invisible Gorilla
12:48 Interoception: Your Body Votes on Reality
16:33 Memory: Reconstructing the Past
19:46 Cultural Influence: Preloaded Predictions
23:28 Neurodiversity: Different Prediction Parameters
27:52 Manipulated Realities: Algorithms and DeepFakes
32:59 Collective Reality: Synchronizing Priors
37:12 Practical Steps: Flexibility and Accuracy
40:08 Ethical Implications: Life or Death Stakes
44:21 Conclusion: Stay Curious
McGurk Effect (video via BBC)
Green Needle Brainstorm Effect (video)
Resources
Bail, C. A., Argyle, L. P., Brown, T. W., Bumpus, J. P., Chen, H., Hunzaker, M. B. F., Lee, J., Mann, M., Merhout, F., & Volfovsky, A. (2018). Exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(37), 9216-9221. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804840115
Botvinick, M., & Cohen, J. (1998). Rubber hands 'feel' touch that eyes see. Nature, 391(6669), 756. https://doi.org/10.1038/35784
Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181-204. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X12000477
Colloca, L., & Benedetti, F. (2005). Placebos and painkillers: Is mind as real as matter? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6(7), 545-552. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1705
Corlett, P. R., Frith, C. D., & Fletcher, P. C. (2009). From drugs to deprivation: A Bayesian framework for understanding models of psychosis. Psychopharmacology, 206(4), 515-530. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-009-1561-0
Critchley, H. D., Wiens, S., Rotshtein, P., Öhman, A., & Dolan, R. J. (2004). Neural systems supporting interoceptive awareness. Nature Neuroscience, 7(2), 189-195. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1176
de Lange, F. P., Heilbron, M., & Kok, P. (2018). How do expectations shape perception? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(9), 764-779. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.06.002
Fletcher, P. C., & Frith, C. D. (2009). Perceiving is believing: A Bayesian approach to explaining the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(1), 48-58. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2536
Friston, K. (2005). A theory of cortical responses. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 360(1456), 815-836. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2005.1622
Friston, K. (2010). The free-energy principle: A unified brain theory? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(2), 127-138. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2787
Garfinkel, S. N., Minati, L., Gray, M. A., Seth, A. K., Dolan, R. J., & Critchley, H. D. (2014). Fear from the heart: Sensitivity to fear stimuli depends on individual heartbeats. Journal of Neuroscience, 34(19), 6573-6582. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3507-13.2014
Garfinkel, S. N., Seth, A. K., Barrett, A. B., Suzuki, K., & Critchley, H. D. (2015). Knowing your own heart: Distinguishing interoceptive accuracy from interoceptive awareness. Biological Psychology, 104, 65-74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2014.11.004
Gotlib, I. H., & Joormann, J. (2010). Cognition and depression: Current status and future directions. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 6, 285-312. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.121208.131305
Haley G. Frey, Lua Koenig, Ned Block, Biyu J. He, Jan W. Brascamp; Memory representations during slow change blindness. Journal of Vision 2024;24(9):8. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.24.9.8.
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 61-83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X
Hohwy, J. (2013). The predictive mind. Oxford University Press.
Keller, G.B., & Sterzer, P. (2024). Predictive Processing: A Circuit Approach to Psychosis. Annual review of neuroscience.
Lafer-Sousa, R., Hermann, K. L., & Conway, B. R. (2015). Striking individual differences in color perception uncovered by 'the dress' photograph. Current Biology, 25(13), R545-R546. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.04.053
Loftus, E. F. (1975). Leading questions and the eyewitness report. Cognitive Psychology, 7(4), 560-572. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(75)90023-7
Loftus, E. F. (2005). Planting misinformation in the human mind: A 30-year investigation of the malleability of memory. Learning & Memory, 12(4), 361-366. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.94705
Lupyan, G., & Clark, A. (2015). Words and the world: Predictive coding and the language-perception-cognition interface. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(4), 279-284. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721415570732
Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 922-934. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.5.922
McGurk, H., & MacDonald, J. (1976). Hearing lips and seeing voices. Nature, 264(5588), 746-748. https://doi.org/10.1038/264746a0
Nader, K., Schafe, G. E., & Le Doux, J. E. (2000). Fear memories require protein synthesis in the amygdala for reconsolidation after retrieval. Nature, 406(6797), 722-726. https://doi.org/10.1038/35021052
Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2(2), 175-220. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175
Pariser, E. (2011). The filter bubble: What the internet is hiding from you. Penguin Press.
Pellicano, E., & Burr, D. (2012). When the world becomes 'too real': A Bayesian explanation of autistic perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(10), 504-510. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.08.009
Pressnitzer, D., Sayles, M., Micheyl, C., & Winter, I. M. (2008). Perceptual organization of sound begins in the auditory periphery. Current Biology, 18(15), 1124-1128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2008.06.053
Qi, J., Peng, J., & Kang, X. (2025). Predictive processing among individuals with autism spectrum disorder during online language comprehension: A preliminary systematic review. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-024-06704-9
Raymond, J. E., Shapiro, K. L., & Arnell, K. M. (1992). Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: An attentional blink? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 18(3), 849-860. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.18.3.849
Rensink, R. A., O'Regan, J. K., & Clark, J. J. (1997). To see or not to see: The need for attention to perceive changes in scenes. Psychological Science, 8(5), 368-373. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00427.x
Allostatic Interoceptive Overload Across Psychiatric and Neurological Conditions Santamaría-García, Hernando et al. Biological Psychiatry, Volume 97, Issue 1, 28 - 40 https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(24)01428-8/fulltext
Seth, A. K. (2013). Interoceptive inference, emotion, and the embodied self. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17(11), 565-573. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2013.09.007
Seth, A. K. (2021). Being you: A new science of consciousness. Dutton.
Shi, Z., Allenmark, F., Theisinger, L. A., Pistorius, R. L., Glasauer, S., Müller, H. J., & Falter-Wagner, C. M. (2025). Predictive processing in autism spectrum disorder: The atypical iterative prior updating account. Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science, 5(3), 100468. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsgos.2025.100468
Simons, D. J., & Chabris, C. F. (1999). Gorillas in our midst: Sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. Perception, 28(9), 1059-1074. https://doi.org/10.1068/p281059
Slater, M. (2009). Place illusion and plausibility can lead to realistic behaviour in immersive virtual environments. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1535), 3549-3557. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0138
Somoray, K., Miller, D.J., & Holmes, M. (2025). Human Performance in Deepfake Detection: A Systematic Review. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1155/hbe2/1833228
Summerfield, C., & Egner, T. (2009). Expectation (and attention) in visual cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(9), 403-409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2009.06.003
Talarico, J. M., & Rubin, D. C. (2003). Confidence, not consistency, characterizes flashbulb memories. Psychological Science, 14(5), 455-461. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.02453
Tiippana, K. (2014). What is the McGurk effect? Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 725. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00725
Christopher K Tokita, Kevin Aslett, William P Godel, Zeve Sanderson, Joshua A Tucker, Jonathan Nagler, Nathaniel Persily, Richard Bonneau, Measuring receptivity to misinformation at scale on a social media platform, PNAS Nexus, Volume 3, Issue 10, October 2024, pgae396, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae396
Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(6380), 1146-1151. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap9559
Wilkinson, M., Brantley, S., & Feng, J. (2021). A Mini Review of Presence and Immersion in Virtual Reality. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 65(1), 1099-1103. https://doi.org/10.1177/1071181321651148 (Original work published 2021)
Winawer, J., Witthoft, N., Frank, M. C., Wu, L., Wade, A. R., & Boroditsky, L. (2007). Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(19), 7780-7785. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0701644104
★ Support this podcast ★
In this episode of PsyberSpace, host Leslie Poston explores how our brains create different realities through predictive processing. The discussion includes concepts like the McGurk effect, the role of attention, and the impact of body states on perception. Poston explains how memory is a reconstruction influenced by current priors and how culture and language shape our prediction engines. The episode also addresses the implications for clinical settings, media influence, and the rise of DeepFakes. With practical tips for improving our prediction accuracy and updating our beliefs, this episode challenges the notion of objective perception and highlights the ethical stakes of our constructed realities.
00:00 Introduction: Living in Different Realities
00:20 The McGurk Effect: Seeing is Believing
03:47 Predictive Processing: How Brains Build Reality
09:10 Attention and Perception: The Invisible Gorilla
12:48 Interoception: Your Body Votes on Reality
16:33 Memory: Reconstructing the Past
19:46 Cultural Influence: Preloaded Predictions
23:28 Neurodiversity: Different Prediction Parameters
27:52 Manipulated Realities: Algorithms and DeepFakes
32:59 Collective Reality: Synchronizing Priors
37:12 Practical Steps: Flexibility and Accuracy
40:08 Ethical Implications: Life or Death Stakes
44:21 Conclusion: Stay Curious
McGurk Effect (video via BBC)
Green Needle Brainstorm Effect (video)
Resources
Bail, C. A., Argyle, L. P., Brown, T. W., Bumpus, J. P., Chen, H., Hunzaker, M. B. F., Lee, J., Mann, M., Merhout, F., & Volfovsky, A. (2018). Exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(37), 9216-9221. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804840115
Botvinick, M., & Cohen, J. (1998). Rubber hands 'feel' touch that eyes see. Nature, 391(6669), 756. https://doi.org/10.1038/35784
Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181-204. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X12000477
Colloca, L., & Benedetti, F. (2005). Placebos and painkillers: Is mind as real as matter? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6(7), 545-552. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1705
Corlett, P. R., Frith, C. D., & Fletcher, P. C. (2009). From drugs to deprivation: A Bayesian framework for understanding models of psychosis. Psychopharmacology, 206(4), 515-530. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-009-1561-0
Critchley, H. D., Wiens, S., Rotshtein, P., Öhman, A., & Dolan, R. J. (2004). Neural systems supporting interoceptive awareness. Nature Neuroscience, 7(2), 189-195. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1176
de Lange, F. P., Heilbron, M., & Kok, P. (2018). How do expectations shape perception? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(9), 764-779. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.06.002
Fletcher, P. C., & Frith, C. D. (2009). Perceiving is believing: A Bayesian approach to explaining the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(1), 48-58. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2536
Friston, K. (2005). A theory of cortical responses. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 360(1456), 815-836. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2005.1622
Friston, K. (2010). The free-energy principle: A unified brain theory? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(2), 127-138. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2787
Garfinkel, S. N., Minati, L., Gray, M. A., Seth, A. K., Dolan, R. J., & Critchley, H. D. (2014). Fear from the heart: Sensitivity to fear stimuli depends on individual heartbeats. Journal of Neuroscience, 34(19), 6573-6582. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3507-13.2014
Garfinkel, S. N., Seth, A. K., Barrett, A. B., Suzuki, K., & Critchley, H. D. (2015). Knowing your own heart: Distinguishing interoceptive accuracy from interoceptive awareness. Biological Psychology, 104, 65-74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2014.11.004
Gotlib, I. H., & Joormann, J. (2010). Cognition and depression: Current status and future directions. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 6, 285-312. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.121208.131305
Haley G. Frey, Lua Koenig, Ned Block, Biyu J. He, Jan W. Brascamp; Memory representations during slow change blindness. Journal of Vision 2024;24(9):8. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.24.9.8.
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2-3), 61-83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X
Hohwy, J. (2013). The predictive mind. Oxford University Press.
Keller, G.B., & Sterzer, P. (2024). Predictive Processing: A Circuit Approach to Psychosis. Annual review of neuroscience.
Lafer-Sousa, R., Hermann, K. L., & Conway, B. R. (2015). Striking individual differences in color perception uncovered by 'the dress' photograph. Current Biology, 25(13), R545-R546. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.04.053
Loftus, E. F. (1975). Leading questions and the eyewitness report. Cognitive Psychology, 7(4), 560-572. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(75)90023-7
Loftus, E. F. (2005). Planting misinformation in the human mind: A 30-year investigation of the malleability of memory. Learning & Memory, 12(4), 361-366. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.94705
Lupyan, G., & Clark, A. (2015). Words and the world: Predictive coding and the language-perception-cognition interface. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(4), 279-284. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721415570732
Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 922-934. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.5.922
McGurk, H., & MacDonald, J. (1976). Hearing lips and seeing voices. Nature, 264(5588), 746-748. https://doi.org/10.1038/264746a0
Nader, K., Schafe, G. E., & Le Doux, J. E. (2000). Fear memories require protein synthesis in the amygdala for reconsolidation after retrieval. Nature, 406(6797), 722-726. https://doi.org/10.1038/35021052
Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2(2), 175-220. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175
Pariser, E. (2011). The filter bubble: What the internet is hiding from you. Penguin Press.
Pellicano, E., & Burr, D. (2012). When the world becomes 'too real': A Bayesian explanation of autistic perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(10), 504-510. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.08.009
Pressnitzer, D., Sayles, M., Micheyl, C., & Winter, I. M. (2008). Perceptual organization of sound begins in the auditory periphery. Current Biology, 18(15), 1124-1128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2008.06.053
Qi, J., Peng, J., & Kang, X. (2025). Predictive processing among individuals with autism spectrum disorder during online language comprehension: A preliminary systematic review. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-024-06704-9
Raymond, J. E., Shapiro, K. L., & Arnell, K. M. (1992). Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: An attentional blink? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 18(3), 849-860. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.18.3.849
Rensink, R. A., O'Regan, J. K., & Clark, J. J. (1997). To see or not to see: The need for attention to perceive changes in scenes. Psychological Science, 8(5), 368-373. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00427.x
Allostatic Interoceptive Overload Across Psychiatric and Neurological Conditions Santamaría-García, Hernando et al. Biological Psychiatry, Volume 97, Issue 1, 28 - 40 https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(24)01428-8/fulltext
Seth, A. K. (2013). Interoceptive inference, emotion, and the embodied self. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17(11), 565-573. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2013.09.007
Seth, A. K. (2021). Being you: A new science of consciousness. Dutton.
Shi, Z., Allenmark, F., Theisinger, L. A., Pistorius, R. L., Glasauer, S., Müller, H. J., & Falter-Wagner, C. M. (2025). Predictive processing in autism spectrum disorder: The atypical iterative prior updating account. Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science, 5(3), 100468. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsgos.2025.100468
Simons, D. J., & Chabris, C. F. (1999). Gorillas in our midst: Sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. Perception, 28(9), 1059-1074. https://doi.org/10.1068/p281059
Slater, M. (2009). Place illusion and plausibility can lead to realistic behaviour in immersive virtual environments. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1535), 3549-3557. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0138
Somoray, K., Miller, D.J., & Holmes, M. (2025). Human Performance in Deepfake Detection: A Systematic Review. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1155/hbe2/1833228
Summerfield, C., & Egner, T. (2009). Expectation (and attention) in visual cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(9), 403-409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2009.06.003
Talarico, J. M., & Rubin, D. C. (2003). Confidence, not consistency, characterizes flashbulb memories. Psychological Science, 14(5), 455-461. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.02453
Tiippana, K. (2014). What is the McGurk effect? Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 725. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00725
Christopher K Tokita, Kevin Aslett, William P Godel, Zeve Sanderson, Joshua A Tucker, Jonathan Nagler, Nathaniel Persily, Richard Bonneau, Measuring receptivity to misinformation at scale on a social media platform, PNAS Nexus, Volume 3, Issue 10, October 2024, pgae396, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae396
Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(6380), 1146-1151. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap9559
Wilkinson, M., Brantley, S., & Feng, J. (2021). A Mini Review of Presence and Immersion in Virtual Reality. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 65(1), 1099-1103. https://doi.org/10.1177/1071181321651148 (Original work published 2021)
Winawer, J., Witthoft, N., Frank, M. C., Wu, L., Wade, A. R., & Boroditsky, L. (2007). Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(19), 7780-7785. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0701644104
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