All of the content from Unlikely Collaborators is designed to help people understand their own personal, private Perception Box— and learn to work with it. We developed and launched Science of Perception Box, a weekly video podcast, to create a space for thought-provoking conversations about the Perception Box, an invisible mental box each one of us lives inside that colors and shapes everything we experience.
In the video podcast series, renowned neuroscientists Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch unravel the mysteries of the Perception Box—a transformative metaphor conceived by Elizabeth R. Koch that reveals how your beliefs, biases, and brain chemistry shape your reality.
Elizabeth, founder of the neuroscience research foundation Tiny Blue Dot and nonprofit Unlikely Collaborators, developed the groundbreaking Perception Box™ framework. More than just a metaphor, it represents the often unseen matrix of biases, beliefs, and personal narratives that influence how we interpret reality. Rooted in cognitive science and psychological research, this framework illustrates how each person’s unique mental model shapes their understanding of the world—often limiting their ability to connect with new perspectives and ideas. By investigating and untangling our Perception Box beliefs, individuals and communities can unlock compassion, creativity, and new ways of thinking.
Through thought-provoking conversations with luminaries like psychiatrist Dr. Judson Brewer, anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, and journalist Michael Pollan, the podcast illuminates how states like awe, curiosity, and love can expand one’s Perception Box—while fear, anxiety, and anger can shrink it.
From the latest insights in mindfulness and neuroscience to deep dives into love, psychedelics, and human connection, each episode offers tools and perspectives to unlock greater awareness, foster curiosity, and rewrite the way audiences engage with life.
When developing Science of Perception Box, we began by selecting renowned hosts. Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
From there, we sourced expert guests in the fields of anxiety, love, time and memory, psychology, and more and spent a year filming and recording in-depth video interviews in studios across the United States. To accomplish this, we navigated the complex and ever-changing schedules of best-selling authors, renowned psychologists and researchers, and professors from around the globe.
After capturing these thought-provoking conversations, we edited the footage and incorporated music, sound design, and motion graphics to create compelling episodes. A custom graphics package for Science of Perception Box elevated the intro, outro, and accompanying thumbnails for every episode. We also took the time to optimize each episode’s title and description for SEO visibility, ensuring the topics presented and episode content would be discoverable across podcast apps and YouTube.
When it came to marketing the content, we knew that a thoughtful and creative presence on social media would be crucial to reaching fans and new audiences, so we selected specific clips from each episode to be published as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. This provided an easily digestible entry point for new audiences for the show. We used the catchy branding of the podcast’s graphics package in the social media content as well, creating a thoughtful throughline and visual connection for audiences.
We also executed a comprehensive 360 marketing campaign across owned channels, social media, earned media, and paid media. We even earned our first industry accolade during launch week, earning editorial promotion from Amazon Music when selected as a Featured Podcast in their Science collection. From a paid media perspective, we secured ads across podcasting apps and YouTube as well as a print ad in New York City’s Metro newspaper and an interview with PsyPost. Each week, the episode launch was accompanied by social promotion from Unlikely Collaborators, as well as promotion from the expert guests on Science of Perception Box.
On January 16, 2025, Unlikely Collaborators, in partnership with Pod People, launched a weekly simulcast podcast titled Science of Perception Box. Co-hosted by renowned neuroscientists Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch, the podcast has quickly become a beacon for listeners seeking to understand how the mind works—and how it can be expanded.
Within its first week of launch, Science of Perception Box charted #1 in Science on Apple Podcasts (US) and reached #33 across All Podcasts on Apple Podcasts (US). On Spotify, the show hit #13 on the Spotify (US) Science charts. The podcast has continued to find success and grow its audience, remaining consistently in the Top 10 of Science podcasts on Apple Podcasts (US) for the entirety of its season.
The show also earned a launch week accolade from Amazon Music, selected as a Featured Podcast in their Science collection. Episodes are finding a massive fanbase across podcasting apps, with episodes averaging more than 10K first 7-day downloads on average. This puts Science of Perception Box in the top 1% of more than 2.5 million podcasts worldwide!
