The Human Copying Machine
Tiffany Watt-Smith explores the interest of Victorian scientists in our urge to imitate. She explains why scientists turned to theatre to understand this strange phenomenon.
Do you yawn when someone else does? Or inadvertently mimic other people's accents?
Today's neuroscientists say 'mirror neurons' are to blame. But long before MRI scanners, Victorian psychologists also believed we were hard-wired to imitate. Tiffany Watt-Smith from Queen Mary, University of London unearths the 19th-century fascination with the 'Human Copying Machine', and discovers why men of science turned to the world of Victorian theatre to understand this strange phenomenon.
Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage, Gateshead. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to find the brightest academic minds with the potential to turn their ideas into broadcasts.
Producer: Zahid Warley.
Last on
More episodes
Previous
You are at the first episode
Broadcast
- Mon 3 Nov 2014 22:45BBC Radio 3
Featured in...
![]()
New Generation Thinkers—Free Thinking
From prison breaks to VR dinosaurs: insights from the AHRC & BBC's scheme for academics.
The Arts & Ideas Podcast
You can download all the past episodes of Radio 3's Free Thinking
Discussions and talks from the Free Thinking Festival 2019
Angry politics, what we can’t say, being diplomatic, weeping, emotion in music, film & TV
Click to listen to discussions, talks and music as the Free Thinking Festival 2019 Gets Emotional
Angry politics, what we can’t say, being diplomatic, weeping, emotion in music, film & TV
CLICK to LISTEN & SEE programmes from the Free Thinking Festival 2018: The One & the Many
We examine the fast-changing relationship between the individual & the crowd
CLICK to LISTEN & SEE all programmes, images, clips & features from 2017's festival
Free Thinking Festival 2017: The Speed of Life