Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2012/03/24/Being_Human_Mental_Representations_Decision-Making

Laurie Santos argues that to understand the origins of the human mind, we can study the behavior of primate relatives as a proxy for our ancestors.

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As we use the tools of science to explore the nature of humanity, we are learning more and more about how our brains function and what motivates our behavior, built-in biases and blind spots.

These fresh insights are interesting scientifically, but they also evoke significant questions about our lived experience. These perspectives challenge our basic assumptions of who we are, both as individuals and as a society.

Laurie Santos is an associate professor of psychology at Yale University and the director of Yale University's Comparative Cognition Laboratory. She received her B.A. in Psychology and Biology from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard.