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New NPR show Invisibilia explores the mysteries of human behavior

New NPR show Invisibilia explores the mysteries of human behavior

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What are the invisible forces that make us do the things we do? That's the question of a new show Invisibilia, which premieres today on NPR. The show uses neuroscience and psychology to explore the stranger corners of human behavior. In an interview with Vox, the show's creators lay out some of the ambitious territory they'll be covering, from subjects plagued by violent thoughts to a woman who has sustained such damage to her amygdala that she's physiologically incapable of feeling fear. In each case, the goal is to shed light on the internal forces that guide us as we move through everyday life.

The feel of the show will be similar to Radiolab and This American Life, which creators Alix Spiegel and Lulu Miller have contributed to, but the singular focus on mental and behavioral science will give Invisibilia a decidedly different focus. "At a certain point, we were trying to figure out what united all these stories, and we realized that we kept looking at all sorts of invisible forces that shape human behavior — the conceptual lenses through which we see the world," Spiegel told Vox. "We're looking, in a very intense way, at concepts that undergird everything and shape our experience of the world."