CogNation

Latest Episodes:

Episode 18: The Psychology of Religion with David Wulff Aug 11, 2019

Show notes

David Wulff, author of the comprehensive "Psychology of Religion: Classic and Contemporary", talks with us today about some of the issues that psychologists grapple with in studying religion. How can a researcher take a fair and unbiased approach to a topic so fraught with issues of personal belief and faith? How important is belief anyway -- must one sacrifice the intellect to engage in religious practice? David discusses his recent research; his measure of religious tendencies, called the "Faith Q-Sort", has been used internationally to understand how religion manifests differently across individuals.

Resources:
Psychology of Religion: Classic and Contemporary
Autobiography: The Evolution of a Psychologist of Religion

Episode 17: Stanley Milgram and Obedience to Authority Jul 25, 2019

Show notes

In the 1960s, the social psychologist Stanley Milgram performed some of the most famous experiments in psychology history, demonstrating that ordinary people could do terrible things in certain circumstances. Joe and Rolf look into the meaning of these experiments from a contemporary view. How are they holding up over 50 years later, and what else have we learned about obedience?

Milgram's experiments
Milgram in Virtual Reality (Gonzalez-Franco et al., 2018)

Episode 16: Dopamine with Michael Frank Jul 03, 2019

Show notes

Dr. Michael Frank of Brown University talks to us about dopamine -- how it works in the brain, what his research has done to elucidate the function of dopamine circuits, and some of the genetics behind it. A really fascinating dive into a great topic!

Papers:
Dopamine and free will:
Dopamine and learning:

Episode 15: Speech Synthesis From Neural Signals Jun 17, 2019

Show notes

Joe and Rolf discuss recent research finding that recordings from the brain can be used to reconstruct the speech that is being thought about. Getting into the prospects of mind-reading and other futuristic possibilities, they discuss some of the limitations of research in the area and what makes progress so difficult.

Source material: Speech Synthesis from Neural Decoding of Spoken Sentences by G. Anumanchipalli et al. (2019)
YouTube video of the model

Episode 14: Color, Concepts, and Design: Guest Karen Schloss Jun 04, 2019

Show notes

Our guest is Karen Schloss, who studies the way in which color is imbued with meaning through a lifetime of associations with objects (like bananas and fire trucks) and concepts (like love and politics). We discuss her research, including topics such as:

What color should recycling bins be?
A tool that can help designers use color-concept associations in their work
The "blueberry problem" (why is is that blueberries aren't very blue?)
How to market a blue banana
What color heaven and hell should be

Links:
Dr. Karen Schloss's lab at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery
Colorgorical: A color-concept tool
Our paper for discussion: "Color inference in visual communication: the meaning of colors in recycling"

Episode 13: Blue Light and Sleep May 20, 2019

Show notes

We examine a paper that finds sleep disruption from using tablet computers (as compared to reading a book in dim light). How much should we be worried about the effects of screens on a good night's sleep?

There's good reason to believe that blue light is the main culprit -- recently discovered receptors in the eye that respond to blue light directly connect to brain areas implicated in sleep regulation. We lay out the case....

Papers:
"Evening use of light-emitting eReaders...."
"Melanopsin: photoreceptors, physiology and potential"

Episode 12: The Future of Medical Education: Guest Brent Stansfield May 04, 2019

Show notes

Joe and Rolf talk with Brent Stansfield, who is currently the director of medical education at Wayne State University, about the future of health care and the kinds of value that doctors can provide as artificial intelligence and robotic surgery come of age.

We frame the discussion around the article "Medical Education Must Move From the Information Age to the Age of Artificial Intelligence" by Steven Wartman & Donald Combs.

Special Guest: Brent Stansfield.

Episode 11: Intelligence Apr 23, 2019

Show notes

We talk about the history of research on intelligence. Is intelligence a real thing? What does it actually refer to, and can it be measured? Joe and Rolf discuss.

Episode 10: Augmenting the Brain Apr 11, 2019

Show notes

We discuss the article:

Augmentation of Brain Function: Facts, Fiction, and Controversy

...a collection that explores recent research and opinion on ways of enhancing brain functioning, from classroom learning to the use of electrical and laser stimulation on the brain.

Episode 9: Self-Control as a Resource Apr 01, 2019

Show notes

Is self-control something that we an think of as a resource that can be depleted and replenished? It's been a popular model in psychology for years, but it has come under question recently. We discuss "Why self-control seems like (but may not be) limited", a paper by Inzlicht and colleagues that proposes an alternate model.

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