E76 - Bird Bones and the Mind's Eye

Camden, Margaret, and guest David discuss if bird bones are hollow so birds can fly (6:48) and whether everyone sees things the same way in their mind (22:09).

Camden's Misconception: Bird bones are hollow so birds can fly

Citations:

• "What If? 2" by Randall Munroe
• The Science of Birds Podcast — "How Birds Breathe"
• "Bone Density and the Lightweight Skeletons of Birds" by Elizabeth Dumont, UMass Amherst
• Discovery — "Why Do Birds Have Hollow Bones?"
• Montana Natural History Center — "Avian Adaptations"
• Bird Spot — "How Birds' Skeletons Evolved For Flight"
• Wilderness Awareness School — "Bird Skeletons and Avian Physiology"

David's Misconception: We all see things the same way in our minds

Citations:

• Zeman et al. (2015) — "Lives Without Imagery: Congenital Aphantasia." Cortex
• Zeman (2024) — "Aphantasia and Hyperphantasia: Exploring Imagery Vividness Extremes." Trends in Cognitive Sciences
• Dance, Ipser & Simner (2022) — "The Prevalence of Aphantasia in the General Population." Consciousness and Cognition
• Marks (1973) — Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ). British Journal of Psychology
• Kay et al. (2022) — "The Pupillary Light Response as a Physiological Index of Aphantasia." eLife
• Pearson (2019) — "The Human Imagination: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual Mental Imagery." Nature Reviews Neuroscience
• Milton et al. (2021) — "Behavioral and Neural Signatures of Visual Imagery Vividness Extremes." Cerebral Cortex Communications
• Bainbridge et al. (2021) — "Quantifying Aphantasia Through Drawing." Cortex
• Wicken et al. (2021) — "The Critical Role of Mental Imagery in Human Emotion." Proceedings of the Royal Society B