In this week's episode, we present two stories of observational errors, from a neuroscientist who's unable to see the world like her friends do, to an attorney discovers something others have overlooked while interviewing prisoners who are unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity.

Part 1: Neuroscientist Qi Lin struggles to connect with friends and colleagues when she can’t escape her scientific mindset.

Jump to Qi’s story >>

Hailing from Guangzhou (with the best dim sum!), China, Qi Lin is currently working in Dr. Daniela Schiller's lab as a lab manager and investigate the flexibility of emotional memory and the neural basis of social cognition. Qi graduated from New York University with a bachelor degree in psychology in 2015 December. She has a picture of her brain (sagittal) attached on her refrigerator door.

Part 2: When attorney Michael Perlin begins interviewing individuals who were not competent to stand trial, he makes a startling discovery.

Jump to Michael’s story >>

Michael Perlin is a Professor of Law Emeritus at New York Law School (NYLS), founding director of NYLS’s Online Mental Disability Law Program, and founding director of NYLS’s International Mental Disability Law Reform Project in its Justice Action Center. He is also the co-founder of Mental Disability Law and Policy Associates. His hobbies include fishing, birding, playing the clarinet, opera, and the music of Bob Dylan.

Michael Perlin's story was produced as part of a partnership with Springer Nature's Before the Abstract podcast. Find out more at www.beforetheabstract.com/