Désirée Brucks is a postdoc at the University of Giessen and studies social cognition in animals, having worked with dogs, wolves, parrots, and a few more species. She is currently studying farm animals. In this conversation, we talk mainly about her work on inequty aversion in dogs and helping behaviour in parrots. Along the way, I get to ask all sorts of questions about animal cognition. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin ...
Jul 09, 2021•1 hr 40 min
This is the final episode of our discussion of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (Oliver Ready's translation for Penguin Classics), in which we discuss the epilogue and have a more general discussion about the book. For this first book club series, I'm joined by Antonia. We did our Masters degree in Brain and Mind Sciences together at UCL. Since then, Antonia has gotten a PhD in psychology and now works in scientific publishing. Podcast links Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/ Twitter:...
Jul 02, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Pete Trimmer is a behavioural scientist who works as a senior teaching fellow at the University of Wawrick. His research, almost exclusively theoretical, focuses on the evolution of learning, decision-making, and physiological processes. In this conversation, we talk about a wide range of topics: how Pete became a world-class croquet player (former World No. 3), how he got into academia, how he overcame maths anxiety to become a mathematical biologist, and his work on ecological rationality. BJK...
Jun 25, 2021•1 hr 29 min
In this episode, we discuss part 5 and then part 6 of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (Oliver Ready's translation for Penguin Classics). For this first book club series, I'm joined by Antonia. We did our Masters degree in Brain and Mind Sciences together at UCL. Since then, Antonia has gotten a PhD in psychology and now works in scientific publishing. Timestamps 0:00:05: Start part 5 0:49:45: Start part 6 Podcast links Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/B...
Jun 18, 2021•1 hr 36 min
Giuliana Spadaro is a postdoc in the Amsterdam Cooperation Lab, directed by Daniel Balliet. Her research focuses on cooperation and prosociality. In this conversation, we talk about Giuliana's recent work on the Cooperation Databank ( https://cooperationdatabank.org/ ), a database that contains around 2,600 studies on cooperation, coded by experts to facilitate meta-analyses and other tasks about cooperation research. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely...
Jun 11, 2021•1 hr 18 min
In this episode, we discuss part 3 and then part 4 of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (Oliver Ready's translation for Penguin Classics). For this first book club series, I'm joined by Antonia. We did our Masters degree in Brain and Mind Sciences together at UCL. Since then, Antonia has gotten a PhD in psychology and now works in scientific publishing. Timestamps 0:00:05: Beginning discussing Part 3 0:56:00: Beginning discussing Part 4 Podcast links Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/ ...
Jun 04, 2021•1 hr 47 min
Erik Wengström is a Professor of Economics at Lund University where he studies how people behave in economic and financial situations. In this conversation, we talk about his study about loss aversion when deciding for others and his recent study on prosociality during the COVID-19 pandemic. Along the way, we also discuss the differences and similarities between economics and psychology. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin Ja...
May 28, 2021•1 hr 14 min
This is a new kind of episode for this podcast: in addition to the interviews, I will now do a book club in which I and a friend read a long book (>500 pages) I've always wanted to read but haven't gotten around to. We will read around 100 pages per week and sit down for an hour to chat about the book. To not clog up the podcast feed, I'll publish two discussions in one episode every other week. The first book in this book club is Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (Oliver Ready's trans...
May 21, 2021•1 hr 52 min
Bianca Trovò is a PhD student at Neurospin and Sorbonne Université, where she studies self-initiated movements. Recently, she is a developer of Ants-Review, a blockchain-based protocol for incentivising scientific peer review. In this conversation, we talk mainly about Ants-Review and I ask questions from the perspective of a scientist who isn't particularly familiar with blockchain and cryptography. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted b...
May 14, 2021•1 hr 49 min
Brock Bastian is a professor of psychology at the University of Melbourne whose research focuses on pain, happiness, and morality. In this conversation, we talk about Brock's work on how and why pain is meaningful. We talk about Brock's work on pain and cooperation, reproducibility in social psychology, his books The Other Side of Happiness, the value of doing shit jobs, Brave New World, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted...
Apr 30, 2021•1 hr 9 min
Kate Jeffery is a professor of behavioural neuroscience at University College London, where she works on spatial navigation. In this conversation, we talk about the history of spatial navigation, Kate's work on grid cells and place cells in 3D, and her recent work on entropy and brain evolution. Timestamps 0:00:05: Kate's journey from medicine to neuroscience 0:10:57: A brief history of spatial navigation 0:30:43: PhD applications now and in 1990 0:34:38: Kate recorded grid cells 10 years before...
Apr 16, 2021•1 hr 59 min
Tessa Rusch is a postdoc working on computational modelling of social interactions at Caltech in the labs of Ralph Adolphs and John O'Doherty. She is also part of COVID-Dynamic project, a large-scale longitudinal study on the psychological effects of the COVID pandemic. In this conversation, we talk about Tessa's experiences of being part of such a large project, about her move to the US just before the pandemic, and about her review on computational models and bevioural tasks of Theory of Mind....
Apr 02, 2021•1 hr 48 min
Joe Hilgard is Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at Illinois State University. In this conversation, we discuss his work on detecting and reporting scientific fraud. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New conversations every other Friday. You can find the podcast on all podcasting platforms (e.g., Spotify, Apple/Google Podcasts, etc.). Timestamps 0:00:05: Are we only catching the dumb fraudsters? 0:...
Mar 19, 2021•1 hr 28 min
Eiko Fried is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at Leiden University. He recently published a target article in Psychological Inquiry about the lack of theory building in network and factor models, and how this impedes progress. In this conversation, we talk about that article, problems with theories in psychology, Eiko's general approach to science, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-S...
Mar 05, 2021•1 hr 42 min
Jesse Geerts is a PhD student at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre at UCL, in the lab of Neil Burgess. We met a few years ago when we were in the same cohort of the Dual Masters in Brain and Mind Sciences, hosted in the first year in London by UCL and in the second year in Paris by UPMC and ENS. In this conversation, we talk about Jesse's new paper in PNAS, what it's like to do his PhD programme, how to know when a paper is ready to be submitted, and a bunch of other topics. BJKS Podcast is a podcas...
Feb 19, 2021•1 hr 50 min
Hanne Watkins is an adviser for the Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government. Previously, she was a PhD student and postdoc studying how humans think about morality in the context of war. In this conversation, we talk about Hanne's move from academia to governmental work, and about her previous work on morality in a war context. We also talk about her experience of running a Registered Report, something I've read a fair bit about, but haven't yet gotten around to doing myself. BJK...
Feb 05, 2021•1 hr 11 min
This episode features two guests: Coco Kühnapfel and Ian Stewart, who are half of the team behind EDGE. EDGE is an organisation that tries to bring together neuroscientists and artists to enable communication and to strengthen the intersection between the two fields. EDGE organises workshops and art exhibitions. In this conversation, we talk about the relationship between art and science, how EDGE started and has been evolving, and Coco gives a brief overview of empirical aesthetics. As always, ...
Jan 22, 2021•1 hr 44 min
Paul Smaldino is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Merced. His research focus is broad and includes cultural and social evolution, cooperation, and philosophy of science. In this conversation, we focus on Paul's recent papers on modelling, which I have found very useful in my own attempts of getting started with creating formal models. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New conversati...
Jan 08, 2021•1 hr 19 min
Jonathan Berman is Associate Professor of Marketing at the London Business School. His main research focus is on judgment and decision-making. In this conversation, we talk predominately about Jonathan's paper "Moral Choice When Harming is Unavoidable" that came out this year in Psychological Science. As part of our conversation about this paper, we also discuss open science practices, especially preregistration. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely rela...
Dec 25, 2020•1 hr 20 min
Toby Wise is a postdoc at UCL and Caltech. He uses computational modelling and neuroimaging to study the mechanisms underlying anxiety and depression. I first encountered Toby when he and I published separate preprints on PsyArXiv on the same topic (risk perception for COVID-19) within a few hours of each other. In this conversation, we talk about doing research about COVID-19: why we decided to do it, practical considerations, and differences and similarities between our studies. We also talk a...
Dec 11, 2020•2 hr 37 min
Antonia Wesseloh is a fashion model who has worked with some of the most esteemed fashion brands (including Prada, Chanel, Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton, and Dior). We first met when Antonia did an internship for her Bachelor's degree in Psychology in our lab. In this conversation, we talk about Antonia's path in fashion, and I ask Antonia for some advice for taking photos of people. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kup...
Nov 27, 2020•1 hr 11 min
Cody Kommers is a PhD student in experimental psychology at the University of Oxford, focussing on social cognition. He also writes popular science and hosts two podcasts: Cognitive Revolution and Notes From The Field. In this conversation, we talk about a variety of topics, including how to start a podcast, how to run a podcast while doing a PhD, Cody's new travel-podcast, his preprint on intuitive anthropology, and the problem of finding a good problem. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neurosci...
Nov 13, 2020•2 hr 28 min
Catherine Preston is a cognitive neuroscientist, studying body perception and self-awareness. Catherine and I first met in Stockholm in 2014 when I was doing an internship in Henrik Ehrsson's lab. Catherine was my day-to-day supervisor, and our project investigated full-body illusions viewed in a mirror. Catherine has since moved to York, where she works as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor). In this conversation, we talk about Catherine's recent research on bodily illusions, including application...
Oct 30, 2020•1 hr 40 min
Aaron is a cognitive neuroscientist, working on volition and consciousness. Aaron and I met in 2016 in Paris when I did my MSc thesis in his lab at Neurospin on decoding planned and spontaneous movements, using M/EEG. Aaron has since moved to California where he is Assistant Professor at Chapman University. In this conversation, we talk about Aaron's work in trying to understand the readiness potential. We talk about the classic interpretation, Aaron's interpretation, and how Aaron's interpretat...
Oct 16, 2020•1 hr 10 min
Matthias Nau is a cognitive neuroscientist at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience in Trondheim, Norway. He finished his PhD recently in Christian Doeller's group at the Kavli, where he currently works as a postdoc. Whenever the current pandemic cools down, Matthias will start a position as a postdoc at NIH with Chris Baker (this position was supposed to start in early 2020). In this conversation, we talk about a variety of topics, from Matthias's recent research (the link between vision...
Oct 02, 2020•1 hr 45 min
