The Voices Within
The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves
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The Voices Within
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Narrated by:
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Julian Elfer
About this listen
A luminous exploration of the nature of thoughts, from daydreams to the voices in our heads.
At the moment you caught sight of this book, what were you thinking? Was your thought a stream of sensations? Or was it a voice in your head? Did you ask yourself, "I wonder what that's about?" Did you answer? And what does it mean if you did?
When someone says they hear voices in their head, they are often thought to be mentally ill. But, as Charles Fernyhough argues in The Voices Within, such voices are better understood as one of the chief hallmarks of human thought. Our inner voices can be self-assured, funny, profound, hesitant, or mean; they can appear in different accents and even in sign language. We all hear them - and we needn't fear them. Indeed, we cannot live without them. We need them, whether to make decisions or to bring a book's characters to life as we read. Studying them can enrich our understanding of ourselves, and our understanding of the world around us; it can help us understand the experiences of visionary saints, who might otherwise be dismissed as schizophrenics, to alleviate the suffering of those who do have mental health problems, and to understand why the person next to us on the subway just burst out laughing for no apparent reason.
Whether the voices in our heads are meandering lazily or clashing chaotically, they deserve to be heard. Bustling with insights from literature, film, art, and psychology, The Voices Within offers more than science; it powerfully entreats us all to take some time to hear ourselves think.
©2016 Charles Fernyhough (P)2017 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 177
In Seeing Voices, Oliver Sacks turns his attention to the subject of deafness, and the result is a deeply felt portrait of a minority struggling for recognition and respect - a minority with its own rich, sometimes astonishing, culture and unique visual language, an extraordinary mode of communication that tells us much about the basis of language in hearing people as well.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Rich Experience
- By Douglas on 11-27-12
By: Oliver Sacks
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Riveted
- The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe
- By: Jim Davies
- Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 61
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4 out of 5 stars 51
Professor Jim Davies's fascinating and highly accessible book, Riveted, reveals the evolutionary underpinnings of why we find things compelling. Drawing on work from philosophy, anthropology, religious studies, psychology, economics, computer science, and biology, Davies offers a comprehensive explanation to show that in spite of the differences between the many things that we find compelling, they have similar effects on our minds and brains.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fun and excellent listen!
- By Alejandro Franco on 04-13-18
By: Jim Davies
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Mind Wide Open
- Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
- By: Steven Johnson
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 563
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 138
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Story4 out of 5 stars 139
Brilliantly exploring today's cutting edge brain research, Mind Wide Open allows readers to understand themselves and the people in their lives as never before. Using a mix of experiential reportage, personal storytelling, and fresh scientific discovery, Steven Johnson describes how the brain works and how its systems connect to the day-to-day realities of individual lives.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A totally new perspective on life
- By Jonathan on 09-16-04
By: Steven Johnson
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Babel No More
- The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners
- By: Michael Erard
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 47
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
We all learn at least one language as children. But what does it take to learn six languages...or seventy? In Babel No More, Michael Erard, "a monolingual with benefits," sets out on a quest to meet language superlearners and make sense of their mental powers. On the way he uncovers the secrets of historical figures like Italian cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, who was said to speak seventy-two languages; Emil Krebs, a pugnacious German diplomat, who spoke sixty-eight languages; and Lomb Kat, a Hungarian who taught herself Russian by reading Russian romance novels.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Heavy on anecdote, light on science
- By S. Yates on 07-15-16
By: Michael Erard
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Mindwise
- Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want
- By: Nicholas Epley
- Narrated by: Nicholas Epley
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 382
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 326
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Story4 out of 5 stars 319
You are a mind reader, born with an extraordinary ability to understand what others think, feel, believe, want, and know. It's a sixth sense you use every day, in every personal and professional relationship you have. At its best, this ability allows you to achieve the most important goal in almost any life: connecting, deeply and intimately and honestly, to other human beings. At its worst, it is a source of misunderstanding and unnecessary conflict, leading to damaged relationships and broken dreams. How good are you at knowing the minds of others?
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2 out of 5 stars
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Finally gave up - no real point
- By Thomas on 05-12-14
By: Nicholas Epley
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The Self Illusion
- Why There Is No "You" Inside Your Head
- By: Bruce Hood
- Narrated by: Bruce Hood
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 197
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 171
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 167
The Self Illusion provides a fascinating examination of how the latest science shows that our individual concept of a self is in fact an illusion. Most of us believe that we possess a self - an internal individual who resides inside our bodies, making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free will. The feeling that a single, unified, enduring self inhabits the body is compelling and inescapable. But that sovereignty of the self is increasingly under threat from science as our understanding of the brain advances.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disappointing
- By David R Pinsof on 05-10-12
By: Bruce Hood
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Ha!
- The Science of When We Laugh and Why
- By: Scott Weems
- Narrated by: Kalen Allmandinger
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 149
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 130
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Story4 out of 5 stars 131
Humor, like pornography, is famously difficult to define. We know it when we see it, but is there a way to figure out what we really find funnyand why? In this fascinating investigation into the science of humor and laughter, cognitive neuroscientist Scott Weems uncovers what’s happening in our heads when we giggle, guffaw, or double over with laughter. While we typically think of humor in terms of jokes or comic timing, in Ha! Weems proposes a provocative new model.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good place to start in the study of humor
- By Amazon Customer on 05-26-17
By: Scott Weems
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The Secret Life of Pronouns
- What Our Words Say About Us
- By: James W. Pennebaker
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 209
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 183
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Story4 out of 5 stars 183
We spend our lives communicating. In the last 50 years, we've zoomed through radically different forms of communication, from typewriters to tablet computers, text messages to tweets. We generate more and more words with each passing day. Hiding in that deluge of language are amazing insights into who we are, how we think, and what we feel.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sticks and Stones and Words Can Really Help You
- By Lynn on 09-24-12
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The Perfect You
- A Blueprint for Identity
- By: Dr. Caroline Leaf, Avery Jackson, Peter Amua-Quarshi, and others
- Narrated by: Margaret Winston
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 293
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 244
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 238
There are a lot of personality tests out there designed to label you and put you in a particular box. But Dr. Caroline Leaf says there's much more to you than a personality profile can capture. In fact, you cannot be categorized! In this fascinating book, she takes listeners through seven steps to rediscover and unlock their unique "you quotient".
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hands down, the most helpful book I've listened to
- By Rose O'Connor on 07-31-17
By: Dr. Caroline Leaf, and others
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Mastermind
- How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes
- By: Maria Konnikova
- Narrated by: Karen Saltus
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 411
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 346
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Story4 out of 5 stars 340
No fictional character is more renowned for his powers of thought and observation than Sherlock Holmes. But is his extraordinary intellect merely a gift of fiction, or can we learn to cultivate these abilities ourselves, to improve our lives at work and at home? We can, says psychologist and journalist Maria Konnikova, and in Mastermind she shows us how. Beginning with the "brain attic", Konnikova unpacks the mental strategies that lead to clearer thinking and deeper insights.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Mindless: How to Regurgitate Useless Information
- By CC on 02-12-13
By: Maria Konnikova
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Consciousness and the Social Brain
- By: Michael S. A. Graziano
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 231
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 190
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Story4 out of 5 stars 190
What is consciousness and how can a brain, a mere collection of neurons, create it? In Consciousness and the Social Brain, Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano lays out an audacious new theory to account for the deepest mystery of them all. In Graziano's theory, the machinery that attributes awareness to others also attributes it to oneself. Damage that machinery and you disrupt your own awareness. Graziano discusses the science, the evidence, the philosophy, and the surprising implications of this new theory.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Cutting edge...
- By Douglas on 08-07-14
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An Anthropologist on Mars
- Seven Paradoxical Tales
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Oliver Sacks
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,319
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,151
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,147
To these seven narratives of neurological disorder Dr. Sacks brings the same humanity, poetic observation, and infectious sense of wonder that are apparent in his bestsellers Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. These men, women, and one extraordinary child emerge as brilliantly adaptive personalities, whose conditions have not so much debilitated them as ushered them into another reality.
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5 out of 5 stars
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SACKS IS AN ABSOLUTE JOY !!
- By Jeff on 09-22-13
By: Oliver Sacks
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The Bilingual Brain
- And What It Tells Us About the Science of Language
- By: Albert Costa, John W. Schwieter - translator
- Narrated by: Luis Soto
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
How do two languages coexist in the same brain? Why is it possible to forget a language? What are the advantages and challenges of being bilingual? Over half of the world's population is bilingual, and yet this fascinating, complex ability is understood by few. In The Bilingual Brain, leading expert Albert Costa explores the science of language through a wide range of cutting-edge studies and examples from South Korea to Spain and Canada.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Brains make language and language makes brains
- By Andy P. on 08-25-20
By: Albert Costa, and others
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Louder Than Words
- The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning
- By: Benjamin K. Bergen
- Narrated by: Benjamin K. Bergen
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 444
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 396
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Story4 out of 5 stars 393
Whether it’s brusque, convincing, fraught with emotion, or dripping with innuendo, language is fundamentally a tool for conveying meaning - a uniquely human magic trick in which you vibrate your vocal cords to make your innermost thoughts pop up in someone else’s mind. You can use it to talk about all sorts of things - from your new labradoodle puppy to the expansive gardens at Versailles, from Roger Federer’s backhand to things that don’t exist at all, like flying pigs.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fun But Technical--Glad I Got It On Sale
- By Gillian on 05-22-17
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Blindspot
- By: Mahzarin R. Banaji, Anthony G. Greenwald
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 563
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 459
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Story4 out of 5 stars 456
I know my own mind. I am able to assess others in a fair and accurate way. These self-perceptions are challenged by leading psychologists Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald as they explore the hidden biases we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality. Blindspot is the authors’ metaphor for the portion of the mind that houses hidden biases.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Difficult to interpret.
- By Ryan Arnold on 12-21-15
By: Mahzarin R. Banaji, and others
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The Ravenous Brain
- How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning
- By: Daniel Bor
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 74
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Story4 out of 5 stars 72
Consciousness is our gateway to experience: it enables us to recognize Van Gogh’s starry skies, be enraptured by Beethoven’s Fifth, and stand in awe of a snowcapped mountain. Yet consciousness is subjective, personal, and famously difficult to examine: philosophers have for centuries declared this mental entity so mysterious as to be impenetrable to science. In The Ravenous Brain, neuroscientist Daniel Bor departs sharply from this historical view, and proposes a new model for how consciousness works.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Effectively demystifies consciousness
- By Gary on 11-18-12
By: Daniel Bor
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The Belief Instinct
- The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life
- By: Jesse Bering
- Narrated by: Jesse Bering
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 101
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
Why is belief so hard to shake? Despite our best attempts to embrace rational thought and reject superstition, we often find ourselves appealing to unseen forces that guide our destiny, wondering who might be watching us as we go about our lives, and imagining what might come after death. In this lively and masterfully argued new book, Jesse Bering unveils the psychological underpinnings of why we believe.
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5 out of 5 stars
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engaging and insightful
- By juliagee on 01-02-15
By: Jesse Bering
What listeners say about The Voices Within
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 03-29-19
great book
refreshing new perspective on a complex human experience. impressed with the authors ability to reframe social and medical view of the hearing voices experience.
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