Production Title: Horizon - Out of Control?

Director: Ben Lawrie

Production Company: BBC - Horizon

Broadcaster: BBC 2

 

This programme takes a look at the processes that are at work in our unconscious.  We all think that we are in control of what we are doing, but according to scientists, a lot of our decision making goes on at an unconscious level.

Reviews:

Pick of the day in the following: Independent, Telegraph, Times, Guardian, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, Radio Times, Time Out.

• Times (“mind-expanding… not one for control freaks”)
• Guardian (“an incredible documentary in which scientists explore the secret world of the unconscious mind… Yet further proof that science can be discussed in an eye-catching, brain-pleasing manner”)
• Radio Times (pick of the day) – (“There’s a lovely scene in this Horizon where the director gives each of the brain scientists he interviews a marker pen and a sketch pad. Then he asks each of them to show on paper how much of what the brain does is conscious, and how much unconscious, in their view. They vary: one shades in a tiny square, which he says is the conscious brain’s contribution; another shades off about a tenth of the page. But they all agree that, like an iceberg, the great majority of our brain activity lies below the surface. The sense we are consciously in control is an illusion – and the programme goes on to illustrate this with wonderful experiments involving golf, knitting and chasing toy helicopters.”)