Shadowing Practice: Meet Your Master - Getting to Know Your Brain: Crash Course Psychology #4 - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
159 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
In the early 1800s, German physician Franz Joseph Gall spent a lot of time running his fingers over the scalps of strangers.
2
He wasn't a hairdresser, he wasn't a masseuse, he wasn't, like, just a big fan of heads.
3
He was a phrenologist.
4
He was the first phrenologist.
5
Gall believed that a person's personality was linked to their skull morphology, that its bumps and ridges indicated aspects of their character.
6
Amazingly, this science actually caught on, was widely practiced for decades, and Gall Gahl became something of a celebrity.
7
Well, with a head like his, one can see how he might have been a little bit fixated with skull shape.
8
Eventually, phrenology was dismissed as occult pseudoscience, because it turns out that your cranial contours tell us exactly nothing about what's happening inside the brain.
9
And yet, Gahl was actually onto something big, something that we knew nothing about.
10
Remember, at this point, we were just starting to get consensus that the brain was the source of self, and not like the soul,
11
or the heart, or whatever.
12
His lasting and correct proposition was that different parts of the brain control specific aspects of our behavior.
13
Like we talked about last time, there is a strong link between biological activity and psychological events.
14
But in addition to the interplay of chemicals like neurotransmitters and hormones,
15
a lot of this also has to do with the fact that localized parts of the brain have specific functions,
16
like vision, movement, memory, speech, even facial recognition.
17
Function, in other words, is localized.
18
If you could stimulate different parts of my brain any way you wanted to, and if you asked me nicely, I just might let you.
19
You could control my movements, my memories, even my personality.
20
Poke my brain over here, and my arm would twitch.
21
Poke it here, and I'd remember my first kiss.
22
Do it up here, and suddenly I'd be filled with a tremendous hulk -like rage.
23
This is about the link between the brain, that physical hunk of gunk between the ears, and the mind.
24
The thing that is us.
25
Our consciousness, our behavior, our decisions, our memories, ourselves.
26
Some neuroscientists like to say that the mind is what the brain does.
27
So one of the driving questions of psychology, and, like, the human experiment, is how do our brain's functions tie to the behavior of the mind.
28
And you can't even ask the right questions, let alone get at some of the answers, until you get to know the brain.
29
You might have a passing familiarity with your nervous system, like the brain bone's connected to the spinal cord bone,
30
and the spinal cord bone is connected to the motor neuron bone.
31
That's your central nervous system, and there aren't actually any bones.
32
The central nervous system, or just CNS, is what makes your body's big decisions.
33
This system is the command center, and if you mess with it, things are gonna get weird.
34
There's also the peripheral nervous system, which is composed of scout -like sensory neurons that gather information and report it back to the central nervous system.
35
But to get a handle on just how physical the roots of your mind and personality are, how concretely your nervous system makes you you.
36
Let me tell you a story.
37
The Curious Case of Phineas Gage.
38
In 1848, a genial chap named Phineas Gage was working on the railroad, tamping gunpowder into a blasting hole with an iron rod,
39
when the gunpowder ignited.
40
The resulting explosion caused the rod to shoot like a bullet up through his left cheek
41
and out the top of his head.
42
There's brain in between those two places, by the way.
43
Amazingly, he stood up after the accident and walked over to a cart, described what had happened, and then they drove him back to his house,
44
all while he was conscious.
45
So the doctor came to examine him, uh, and refused to believe that a rod had in fact passed through his head,
46
understandably, until Phineas started coughing, and an amount of brain that the doctor described as a teacupful fell out of his head,
47
and the doctor had to accept, indeed, what had happened.
48
After a few months of convalescing, he was pretty much healed up and moving around like he used to.
49
But some of his friends were saying that Phineas was no longer himself.
50
Yes, he had his memories and mental abilities, and he walked and talked and looked the same minus an eyeball.
51
But whereas the old Phineas was mild -mannered and soft -spoken, the post -spike to the brain Phineas was surly and mean -spirited and vulgar.
52
People started to describe him as no longer Gage.
53
Phineas moved away from America, the scientific establishment lost contact with him, and 12 years later, after a series of seizures,
54
he died at the age of 36.
55
Phineas is a great, if extreme, example of how function is localized in the brain, and how physical biological factors can be reflected in psychological ways.
56
Of course, he's also an excellent example of how individual case studies are not particularly useful,
57
especially since we have very little data on what Phineas was actually like before or even after his accident.
58
Most accounts are from the months directly after the accident, and many of them conflict.
59
It's completely possible that he continued to heal and lived his remaining years as a happy and productive citizen.
60
Intro -psychology texts often paint a pretty simple picture of Phineas, just so that we can have a clear example of the moment
61
when physicians realized that messing with the brain was messing with the mind, but it is, of course,
62
all much more complicated, and as Phineas was an actual,
63
real -life person, I feel like we should give him the nuance and mystery that he deserves.
64
Now you might have heard that we only use about 10 % of our brains, and oh, if that were true,
65
Phineas could lose a quarter of his and he'd be just fine.
66
And if we could just harness the rest of that gray mush, we'd be able to mind -read and levitate and get all Professor X.
67
It's an exciting thought, as exciting as the idea
68
that I can tell what kind of tea you like by feeling the bumps on your head.
69
It is also exactly as wrong.
70
After watching an hour or so of reality TV, you'd be forgiven for thinking that some
71
Some people are only working at 10 % brain capacity,
72
but in actual reality, brain scans show that nearly every region of the brain lights up during even simple tasks, like walking and talking.
73
Not only that, but the brain itself requires 20 % of all the body's energy,
74
and it would make little evolutionary sense to throw much energy away at something that's only minimally active.
75
As animals, our capabilities have developed in part from our brain structures.
76
We're actually able to trace our evolutionary history as we come to understand these structures.
77
Less complex animals have simpler brains designed for basic functioning and survival, rest, breathe, eat.
78
Whereas more complex animals, like many mammals, possess brains that feel, remember, reason, and predict.
79
These animals don't have all new systems.
80
They have new brain systems built upon old brain systems.
81
The brain is kind of like a set of Russian nesting dolls.
82
The outermost wooden doll is the newest, most detailed, and most complex.
83
But as you go deeper, the dolls become older and smaller and simpler and more generic.
84
The innermost wooden doll is the oldest, most basic.
85
It's like a fossil in your head.
86
This inner core of the brain, sometimes called the old brain, still performs for us much as it did for our early evolutionary ancestors.
87
It's anchored by the brainstem, the most ancient and central core of the brain, where the spinal cord enters the skull.
88
Above it, at the base of the skull, is the medulla.
89
Here, old brain functions happen automatically without any conscious effort.
90
The beating of hearts, the breathing of lungs, that sort of thing.
91
The pons is perched on the medulla, and it helps coordinate movement.
92
Above the pons, at the top of the brainstem, is the thalamus, a pair of egg -shaped structures that take in sensory information related to seeing,
93
hearing, touching, and tasting.
94
The reticular formation is a finger -shaped nerve network inside the brainstem that's essential for arousal,
95
which isn't necessarily what you feel upon seeing a particularly nice -looking human,
96
but instead refers to things like sleeping and walking and pain perception and other important functions.
97
A baseball -sized cerebellum, or little brain, swells from the bottom of the brainstem and is responsible for nonverbal learning and memory,
98
the perception of time, and modulating emotions.
99
It controls voluntary movement, like your sweet dance moves, but it also gets impaired easily under the influence of alcohol, hence the term tipsy.
100
So the old brain systems keep our body's basic functions running smoothly, the sort of stuff any animal might need.
101
This is pretty much where the brain stops for reptiles.
102
For higher functions, we look to the limbic system.
103
This includes the amygdala, hypothalamus, and hippocampus, sort of a border region of the brain separating the old brain and the newer, higher cerebral areas.
104
The amygdala consists of two lima bean sized clusters of neurons
105
and is responsible for memory consolidation as well as both our greatest fear and hottest aggression.
106
Stimulate one area of the amygdala and a docile family dog suddenly morphs into a bloodthirsty Cujo,
107
shift that electrode over just a tiny bit and that dog will be cowering at butterfly shadow puppets.
108
The hypothalamus keeps your whole body steady, regulating body temperature, circadian rhythms, and hunger also helps govern the endocrine system, especially the pituitary gland.
109
You should also thank your hypothalamus for allowing you to feel pleasure and reward.
110
Rats implanted with electrodes in the reward center of their hypothalamuses, and given ways to self -stimulate those areas,
111
will essentially reward themselves until they collapse or die.
112
So use with caution.
113
The final part of the limbic system is the hippocampus, central to learning and memory,
114
and if it's damaged, a person may lose their ability to retain new facts and memories.
115
Now above all of this is the most advanced stuff, the stuff that you think of when you think of the brain, the gray matter.
116
The two hemispheres of your cerebrum make up about 85 % of your brain weight and oversee your ability to think, speak, and perceive.
117
The left and right hemispheres govern and regulate differing functions, giving us a split brain connected by a structure called the corpus callosum.
118
So, for instance, language production is controlled largely by the left hemisphere, while certain creative functions are controlled by the right.
119
Though, this has nothing to do with handedness
120
or people having dominant sides of their brain being more analytical or creative or whatever.
121
That's part of what we call pop psychology, a behavioral disorder in which journalists and armchair psychologists use research showing beautiful,
122
detailed, intimately connected complexities of your brain to sell newspapers or reinforce previously held beliefs.
123
Yes, some tasks are distributed to one side, but the sides are deeply and constantly connected.
124
A statement as general as artistic people use their right brains is as useless as saying artistic people have particularly bumpy heads.
125
Finally, covering the left and right hemispheres, we have the cerebral cortex, a thin layer of over 20 billion interconnected neurons.
126
But let's not forget the unsung heroes of your nervous system, the billions of non -neuron glial cells, which provide a spiderweb of support that surround,
127
insulate, and nourish these cerebral neurons.
128
You've probably seen enough brain diagrams to know that the cerebral cortex's left and right sides are subdivided into four lobes.
129
The frontal, parietal, occipital, and the frontal cortex and temporal, all separated by especially prominent folds or fissures.
130
Each lobe does indeed have its own set of duties that would have made Franz Gall proud.
131
The frontal lobes, just behind your forehead, are involved in speaking, planning,
132
judging, abstract thinking, and, as the tale of Phineas Gage reminds us, aspects of personality.
133
The parietal lobes receive and process your sense of touch and body position.
134
At the back of your head, the occipital lobes receive information related to sight.
135
And the temporal lobes, just above your ears, process sound, including speech comprehension.
136
Remember that each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body, so my left temporal lobe processes sounds heard through my right ear.
137
And within these lobes, there are still more regions that have specialized functions.
138
Your motor cortex at the rear of your frontal lobes, for example, controls voluntary movements and sends messages from the brain out to the body like,
139
Pet that dog!
140
Or, Pick up that mug!
141
While your sensory cortex right behind it processes incoming sensations like, Ooh, that doggy is soft!
142
Or, Gah, that mug is hot!
143
The rest of your gray matter is made up of association areas that are related to higher mental functions like remembering, thinking, learning, and speaking.
144
But the thing about association areas is that, unlike your sensory or motor cortex, you couldn't just poke one and create a neat response.
145
Association areas are more subtle.
146
They deal with things like interpreting and integrating sensory input and linking it up with memories.
147
And they prevail throughout all four lobes, so brain damage to different areas will cause very different results.
148
A lesion on a specific part of the temporal lobe may destroy a person's ability to recognize faces,
149
traumatic memories, or overactive hormones can profoundly affect our behavior and emotions, all of which remind us how fundamentally biology and psychology are intertwined.
150
And there are a few more fascinating examples of this than how we sense and perceive the world around us,
151
so that's where we're gonna pick up next week.
152
For now, if you were paying attention, you learned the basics of the central nervous system,
153
specifically the brain, which can be understood in terms of old or more evolutionarily ancestral structures, along along with the limbic system,
154
and new structures, which include lobes, cortices, and association areas.
155
Thanks for watching this lesson in Crash Course Psychology, which was brought to you by The Air Show, Midnight House Elves on Etsy, and Daniel Vassi.
156
Thank you so much to all of you.
157
If you would like to sponsor an episode and give your own shout -out, you can learn about that and other perks available at Subbable .com.
158
This episode was written by Kathleen Yale, edited by Blake DiPastino and myself, and our consultant is Dr. Ranjit Bhagwat.
159
Our editor and director is Nicholas Jenkins, Michael Aranda is our sound designer, and our graphics team is Thought Cafe.
Download App
Everything you need to speak fluently
AI PronunciationScore every sentence
IPA PracticeMaster every sound
VocabularyBuild your word bank
Vocab GameLearn while playing
Same Channel
B21
The Bicameral Congress: Crash Course Government and Politics #2
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
B21
Crash Course US History Preview
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
C1What's all the Yellen About? Monetary Policy and the Federal Reserve: Crash Course Economics #10
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
C12
How Water Shapes the Land: Crash Course Geology #9
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
B210
Crash Course Sex Ed Preview
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
Derivatives: Crash Course Physics #2
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
C13
Introduction to Astronomy: Crash Course Astronomy #1
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
C13
Indus Valley Civilization: Crash Course World History #2
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
B22
Ancient Egypt: Crash Course World History #4
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
C12
What is Engineering?: Crash Course Engineering #1
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
The Persians & Greeks: Crash Course World History #5
Cambridge Exam PrepHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
C13
The Secret to Business Writing: Crash Course Business - Soft Skills #3
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
Supervised Learning: Crash Course AI #2
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C1Why Are US Politics Today So Divisive?: Crash Course US Government #1
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
B22
Where Do Diamonds Come From?: Crash Course Geology #8
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepCambridge Exam Prep
C11
Tissues, Part 1: Crash Course Anatomy & Physiology #2
Cambridge Exam PrepUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
Psychological Research: Crash Course Psychology #2
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
C13
Where Did Democracy Come From, and Does It Still Work?
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C12
The Nucleus: Crash Course Chemistry #1
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B21
Defense Against the Dark Arts of Influence: Crash Course Business Soft Skills #2
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
C14
23 sentences
3-D Brain Scans | Pathways 2
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
C133
23 sentences
Happy Brain Chemicals: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endorphin
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C14
125 sentences
The Surprising Reason Your Past Still Controls You
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C110
79 sentences
The 15% Rule: How to Learn Faster | Andrew Huberman
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
386 sentences
All of Human Psychology Explained in 20 Minutes
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C112
14 sentences
Would You Upload Your Mind?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C14
198 sentences
Command Your Life: The Neuroscience of Self-Worth & Power
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C111
93 sentences
Some brains are built for philosophy. Is yours?
British AccentDaily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B24
149 sentences
The Cruelest Game You've Never Played
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C13
159 sentences
Intro to History of Science: Crash Course History of Science #1
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
C11
66 sentences
The famous tree-falling thought experiment has a new answer | Lisa Feldman Barrett
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Meet Your Master - Getting to Know Your Brain: Crash Course Psychology”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: brain, Phineas, lobe, function. This video has 159 sentences and 2483 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:24. The speaker talks fast, about 200 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 78% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| psychology noun | /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/ | The study of the human mind. |
| hemisphere noun | /ˈhɛmɪsfɪə/ | Half of the celestial sphere, as divided by either the ecliptic or the celestial equator . |
| sensory adjective | /ˈsɛn.sə.ɹi/ | Of the physical senses or sensation. |
| cortex noun | /ˈkɔɹtɛks/ | The outer layer of an internal organ or body structure, such as the kidney or the brain. |
| bone noun | /boʊn/ | A composite material consisting largely of calcium phosphate and collagen and making up the skeleton of most vertebrates. |
| doll noun | /dɑl/ | A small figure resembling a human being that is used as a toy. |
| temporal adjective | /ˈtɛm.pə.ɹəl/ | Of or relating to the material world, as opposed to sacred or clerical. |
| cerebral adjective | /səˈɹi.bɹəl/ | Of or relating to the brain, cerebrum, or cerebral cortex. |
| gray adjective | /ɡɹeɪ/ | Of a color between black and white, having neutral hue and intermediate brightness. |
| reward noun | /ɹɪˈwɔɹd/ | Something of value given in return for an act. |
| cord noun | /ˈkoɹd/ | A long, thin, flexible length of twisted yarns (strands) of fibre (a rope, for example). |
| spinal adjective | /spaɪ.nəl/ | Of or relating to the spine. |
| evolutionary adjective | /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/ | Of or relating to the biological theory of evolution. |
| stimulate verb | /ˈstɪm.jəˌleɪt/ | To encourage into action. |
| poke verb | /poʊk/ | To prod or jab with an object such as a finger or a stick. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. |
| light up verb | To illuminate, to bring light to something, to brighten. |
| move around verb | To relocate to new homes repeatedly; to not live in any one place for long. |
| pass through verb | To go through, to travel through, to transit or lie across a place or from one place to another. |
| stand up verb | To rise from a lying or sitting position. |
| turn out verb | To end up; to result. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was linked · was widely practiced · was dismissed |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have developed · You've probably seen · have specialized |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | system, which is · brain, which can · Psychology, which was |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 18 contractions and reduced forms, such as wasn't, gonna, I'd. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: breathe /bɹiːð/, thin /ˈθɪn/, gather /ˈɡæðɚ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, conscious /ˈkɑn.ʃəs/, perception /pɚˈsɛpʃ(ə)n/, physician /fəˈzɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: psychology /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, biological /ˌbaɪ.əˈlɑ.d͡ʒɪ.kəl/, psychological /ˌsaɪ.kəˈlɑː.d͡ʒɪ.kl̩/, voluntary /ˈvɑ.lənˌt(ɛ)ɹi/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like psychology, hemisphere, sensory.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.