Daniel Levitin

American psychologist · United States · On the map · Musicians · Born 1957 · age 68

Daniel Joseph Levitin, FRSC is an American-Canadian polymath, cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, writer, musician, and record producer. He is the author of four New York Times best-selling books, including This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, which has sold more than 1.5 million copies.

Daniel Levitin is read about 66 times a day, in 11 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 9 November 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 115 days, one point a day.

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A life in dates

2016Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fictionAward2014“Multitasking is a myth. ...What's actually happening in the brain is sequential tasking.”In their words28 October 2014Talks at GoogleRead the whole statement

“A good rule of thumb is every couple of hours take fifteen minutes off. Naps are also very helpful, short naps.”In their words28 October 2014Talks at GoogleRead the whole statement

“Memory is fallible... not because of storage limitations so much as retrieval limitations.”In their words: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information OverloadRead the whole statement

“Fondness for stories is just one of many artifacts, side effects of the way our brains work.”In their words: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information OverloadRead the whole statement

“Thinking about one memory tends to activate other memories. ...If you are trying to retrieve a particular memory, the flood of memories can cause competition...”In their words: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information OverloadRead the whole statement

“The information age has off-loaded a great deal of work previously done by people we could call information specialists onto all of the rest of us.”In their words: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information OverloadRead the whole statement

2011Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of ScienceAward1957Born27 December 1957

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In their own words 4

Daniel Levitin

4 statements, newest first

The brain is very good at self-delusion.
28 October 2014 · Talks at Google, Own words
Prior to the invention of writing, our ancestors had to rely on memory, sketches, or music to encode and preserve important information.
2014 · : Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload, Own words
It's not just that we remember things wrongly, but we don't even know we're remembering them wrongly, doggedly insisting that the inaccuracies are in fact true.
2014 · : Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload, Own words