Severance character Mark Scout, played by Adam Scott, walks through a stark white hallway with a bunch of blue balloons.

Popular Show Explores Work-Life Separation

By Heidi Opdyke Email Heidi Opdyke

Heidi Opdyke

Humans naturally have the ability to move in and out of personal and professional modes, says Alison Barth

Alison Barth, Maxwell H. and Gloria C. Connan Professor in the Life Sciences, studies how experience can shape the brain. She said the show writers capture the essence of "that curtain separating work and life."

"State-dependent memory is a well-known phenomenon," Barth said. "That is to say, learning something in a specific place or under some conditions can be totally forgotten when you're in a different place."

For example, undergraduates may experience this when they return home after being away for months — they may be one person on campus and a different person with their families.

"We use all sorts of contextual and social cues to help us remember things, and if those cues are missing, we may forget everything else," she added. "I am pretty certain that if I saw one of my Molecules to Mind students totally out of context — say, on a hiking trip or at the grocery store — they would not be able to repeat what they learned earlier that week. But if I gave them a quiz in class, it would be no problem!"

In the Apple+ show "Severance," characters have chips embedded in their brains that separate their "work" selves from their personas outside of the office.