Decoding The Gurus
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Exploring Mind, Culture & Visual Illusion Controversies with Dorsa Amir and Chaz Firestone
🕑 Added 2025-07-01 11:00:14 +0000 UTCIn this academic-themed interview episode of Decoding the Gurus, Matt and Chris sit down to chat with the cross-disciplinary academics Dorsa Amir and Chaz Firestone about their recent paper 'Is Visual Perception WEIRD? The Müller-Lyer Illusion and the Cultural Byproduct Hypothesis.'
In a conversation that serves as a welcome tonic to the endless lamentations of the gurus about academic group-think and closed-minded silos, Dorsa and Chaz discuss the value of interdisciplinary work and engage with the debates around universal vs. culturally specific psychology and the strength of evidence that visual perception varies between across cultures. Prepare for a mind-blowing academic discussion, which warns of the dangers of being STUPID (Studying Topics Uninformed by Prior Investigations in the Discipline!) and finally uncovers just how much Chaz enjoys popping balloons.
A fun one that might even leave you a little bit more optimistic than usual!
Links
Chaz's Perception & Mind Lab Homepage and his BJJ victory video.
Decoding Academia 33: The Great Müller-Lyer Debate from Fish Tanks to Eye Operations
Mickey Inzlicht's Substack on the Paper and the Debates around it.
Comments
Linda Sears
I am really enjoying this conversation. I wonder if there is an example of a reverse situation where a widely held finding from psychology has been challenged by anthropological research and evidence. By the way, I hope more academics engage in this kind of cross-disciplinary research.
Steelyphil
Wow it was such a treat to hear some vision studies stuff in this podcast! I’m in a vision studies program right now. I’ve really been wondering about the importance of spatial awareness and concept development in children born congenitally blind. I want to see if lacking spatial awareness also impacts language acquisition and the ability to categorize things. I need a cognitive psychologist and a linguist for those sorts of questions. Tricky tricky stuff!
