Angelika Stefan is a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam in the Psychological Methods group (lead by Eric-Jan Wagenmakers). In this conversation, we talk about her preprint 'Big little lies: A Compendium and Simulation of p-Hacking Strategies', which she just uploaded to PsyArXiv. We also discuss how she created the Shiny App that allows users to play around with the simulations and run simulations that didn't make it into the paper. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psycholog...
May 01, 2022•54 min
Jessica Flake is Assistant Professor for quantitative psychology and modeling at McGill University, where she studies measurement. In this conversation, we talk about her recent paper 'Measurement Schmeasurement: Questionable measurement practices and how to avoid them' (with former guest of the podcast Eiko Fried), how she makes stats lectures interesting, and her work on the Psychological Science Accellarator. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely relat...
Apr 07, 2022•1 hr 34 min
Chris Chambers is professor at Cardiff University where he is Head of Brain Stimulation. He is also one of the pioneers behind Registered Reports, a type of article where researchers receive peer review and in-principle acceptance before the results are known. In this conversation, we focus on Registered Reports and talk about how Chris got Registered Reports started at Cortex, how the review process differs between Registered Reports and regular papers, whether they are suited for scientists on...
Mar 16, 2022•58 min
In this conversation, I talk with Toby Wise about applying for postdoc fellowships. Toby has received and completed the Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship, where he worked with Ray Dolan and Dean Mobbs. He answers some of the questions I have about applying for postdoc fellowships in general, such as how to write a proposal, how to contact potential supervisors/sponsors for your application, when to start, and what kind of scientist a fellowship is even for. BJKS Podcast is a podcast abo...
Mar 06, 2022•1 hr 27 min
Hugo Spiers is professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London. His research explores how our brain constructs representations of the world and uses them to recall the past, navigate the present and imagine the future. In this episode, we talk about his work on Sea Hero Quest (with Michael Hornberger, former guest of this podcast), his new research project Taxi Brains, the difficulties and joys of working with more than one species, and cognitive maps in humans. Time stamps 0:00...
Feb 19, 2022•1 hr 30 min
This is the 50th episode of this podcast and we're doing something a little different: Cody Kommers, PhD student, fellow podcaster, and one of the first guests of my podcast, interviewed me about the first year of my podcast: what did I learn, what went differently than expected, and what do I plan on changing in the future? We also discuss podcasting more generally and use Cody's experience in running his podcasts as a counterexample in our discussion. Time stamps 0:00:05: Cody's introduction 0...
Dec 31, 2021•1 hr 40 min
This is the fourth and final episode of a book club series on Peter Gärdenfors's book Conceptual Spaces. In this episode, we will discuss chapters 7 and 8, in which Gärdenfors discusses computational aspects his theory of conceptual spaces, and provides a general discussion of the topics covered in the book. For this series, I'm joined by Koen Frolichcs, who was already my cohost for the books club series on Lee Child's Killing Floor. Koen and I are PhD students in the same lab. Podcast links We...
Dec 24, 2021•51 min
This is the third episode of a book club series on Peter Gärdenfors's book Conceptual Spaces. In this episode, we will discuss chapters 5 and 6, in which Gärdenfors explains how semantics and induction fit into his theory of conceptual spaces. For this series, I'm joined by Koen Frolichcs, who was already my cohost for the books club series on Lee Child's Killing Floor. Koen and I are PhD students in the same lab. Podcast links Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-...
Dec 17, 2021•24 min
This is the second episode of a book club series on Peter Gärdenfors's book Conceptual Spaces. In this episode, we will discuss chapters 3 and 4, in which Gärdenfors explains how properties and concepts fit into his theory of conceptual spaces. For this series, I'm joined by Koen Frolichcs, who was already my cohost for the books club series on Lee Child's Killing Floor. Koen and I are PhD students in the same lab. Podcast links Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod...
Dec 10, 2021•45 min
This is the first episode of a book club series on Peter Gärdenfors's book Conceptual Spaces. In this episode, we will discuss chapters 1 and 2, which provide an overview over the book, and a discussion of the three kinds of representation: subconceptual, conceptual, and symbolic. For this series, I'm joined by Koen Frolichcs, who was already my cohost for the books club series on Lee Child's Killing Floor. Koen and I are PhD students in the same lab. Podcast links Website: https://geni.us/bjks-...
Dec 03, 2021•40 min
Michael Hornberger is a professor of applied dementia research at the University of East Anglia who developed Sea Hero Quest, a mobile game for studying spatial navigation that was downloaded more than 4 million times. In this conversation, we talk about Sea Hero Quest, how Michael (together with Hugo Spiers) developed it, the first findings, and dementia in general. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New ...
Nov 26, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Dan Quintana is a senior researcher at the University of Olso, where his research focuses on oxytocin, autism, and meta-analyses. In this conversation, we talk about Dan's primer on synthetic datasets, science comunication, Everything Hertz, and podcasting in general. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New conversations every other Friday, available on all podcasting platforms (e.g., Spotify, Apple/Google ...
Nov 19, 2021•1 hr 46 min
In episode 42 I interviewed Matthias Stangl about his work on spatial navigation. I wanted to ask him a few questions about postdoc applications, but we ran out of time. Matthias kindly agreed to meet again for a few questions that I would add to the end of our conversation. We ended up speaking for almost an hour, so instead of adding this to an episode that was already more than an hour long, we decided to release this part of our conversation as a separate episode for people who might also be...
Nov 12, 2021•50 min
Matthias Stangl is a postdoc at UCLA, where he studies the neural representations of spatial navigation in social situations. In this conversation, we talk about his PhD work about aging, grid cells, and path integration, about his recent Nature paper, about the difference between movement in VR and actual physical movement, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New episodes every Friday. You c...
Nov 05, 2021•1 hr 10 min
This is the second episode of an experiment: I'll be reviewing all books called "Prisoner's Dilemma". Today I'm reviewing The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma by Trenton Lee Stewart and Prisoner's Dilemma by Ilexa Yardley. 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,...
Oct 29, 2021•34 min
This episode is the start of an experiment: I'll be reviewing all books called "Prisoner's Dilemma", and today I'm starting with the first two books. Basically, I use the Prisoner's Dilemma in my own work and realised that there are 26 books with that title (or minor variant thereof). So, as a very silly idea, I decided to review them all and see whether there is anything I can learn from them about the Prisoner's Dilemma. This episode will be the first, and I'm reviewing A Prisoner's Dilemma by...
Oct 22, 2021•31 min
Nikolai Axmacher is professor at the Institue for Cognitive Neuroscience at the Ruhr University Bochum where his research focuses on memory, spatial navigation, and neurodegenerative diseases. In this conversation, we talk about how he and his colleagues found that people with a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's showed reduced grid-cell like activity and path integration ability, despite having no symptoms and still being in their 20s. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, ...
Oct 15, 2021•1 hr 9 min
Keno Juechems is a Junior Research Fellow at St John's College in Oxford. He studies how humans make decisions, using computational modelling, behavioural tasks, and fMRI. In this conversation, we talk about his papers "Optimal utility and probability functions for agents with finite computational precision" and "Where does value come from?", and various related topics. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. N...
Oct 08, 2021•1 hr 29 min
Jacob Bellmund is a postdoc at the Max Planck in Leipzig, studying spatial navigation, cognitive maps, and episodic memory. In this conversation, we talk about his research on deforming cognitive maps, abstract cognitive maps, and the translation of the spatial navigation literature to abstract spaces. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New episodes every Friday. You can find the podcast on all podcasting ...
Oct 01, 2021•1 hr
This is the third and final episode of our discussion of Andrea Wulf's biography of Alexander von Humboldt, The Invention of Nature. In this episode, we will discuss part 5 and have a general discussion about the entire book. As always with the book club, in each episode we will talk about whatever happened, so there will be spoilers and it probably makes most sense if you have read as far as we have. For this series, I'm joined by Cody Kommers, former guest of the podcast (episode 4), fellow po...
Sep 24, 2021•1 hr 5 min
This is the second episode of our discussion of Andrea Wulf's biography of Alexander von Humboldt, The Invention of Nature. In this episode, we will discuss parts 3 and 4. As always with the book club, in each episode we will talk about whatever happened, so there will be spoilers and it probably makes most sense if you have read as far as we have. For this series, I'm joined by Cody Kommers, former guest of the podcast (episode 4), fellow podcaster, and fellow PhD student in cognitive neuroscie...
Sep 17, 2021•1 hr 3 min
This is the first episode of the third edition of the book club. This time, we're reading Andrea Wulf's biography of Alexander von Humboldt, The Invention of Nature. In this episode, we will discuss parts 1 and 2. As always with the book club, in each episode we will talk about whatever happened, so there will be spoilers and it probably makes most sense if you have read as far as we have. For this series, I'm joined by Cody Kommers, former guest of the podcast (episode 4), fellow podcaster, and...
Sep 10, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Bryan Bruns is an independent consultant sociologist, working mainly on water irrigation systems in southeast Asia. He also publishes academic papers about game theory. In this conversation, we talk about how he became a consultant sociologist, what that even means, how to learn foreign languages, his work on 2x2 games, how to transform a social dilemma into a win-win situation, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benja...
Sep 03, 2021•2 hr 8 min
In this episode, we discuss Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. Unlike the book club episodes (in which we read around 100 pages per week of the book), the book discussions will be one-off discussions of books that for one reason or another affected me. For this book discussion, I'm again joined by Antonia, who works in academic publishing and with whom I did a series on Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment on this podcast. Podcast links Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/ Twitter: https://tw...
Aug 27, 2021•1 hr 8 min
Stuart Ritchie is Lecturer at King's College London, where he studies behavioural genetics in relation to personality and cognitive ability. In this conversation, we don't talk about any of that though but instead focus on his book Science Fictions, a book about how science goes wrong, and the topics covered therein. 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 ...
Aug 20, 2021•1 hr 33 min
This is the third and final episode of our book club on Lee Child's first novel Killing Floor, the novel that introduced Jack Reacher. As always with the book club, there will be spoilers and it probably makes most sense if you have read as far as we have. I will also be reading some quotes I highlighted from Reacher Said Nothing by Andy Martin, a book I'm reading in parallel in which Andy Martin watches Lee Child write a Jack Reacher novel. For this series, I'm joined by Koen Frolichs, fellow P...
Aug 13, 2021•1 hr 21 min
Anna Riedl is a cognitive scientist, currently finishing her MSc in cognitive science in Vienna. She is also founder of Effective Altruism Austria, and co-organiser of the Rationality Vienna Meetup. In this conversation, we talk about cognitive science, rationality, effective altruism, visualisation in science communication, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New conversations every other Fr...
Aug 06, 2021•50 min
This is the second episode of our book club on Lee Child's first novel Killing Floor, the novel that introduced Jack Reacher. As always with the book club, there will be spoilers and it probably makes most sense if you have read as far as we have. I will also be reading some quotes I highlighted from Reacher Said Nothing by Andy Martin, a book I'm reading in parallel in which Andy Martin watches Lee Child write a Jack Reacher novel. For this series, I'm joined by Koen Frolichs, fellow PhD studen...
Jul 30, 2021•2 hr
Nichola Raihani is a professor of evolution and behaviour at University College London. Her research focuses on the evolution of punishment and paranoia. In this conversation, we talk about the fieldwork she did for her PhD in the Kalahari desert, the evolution of punishment, proximate and ultimate explanations, cleaner fish, and Nichola's book The Social Instinct. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New co...
Jul 23, 2021•58 min
This is the first episode of our book club on Killing Floor by Lee Child, his first novel, the novel that introduced Jack Reacher. As always with the book club, there will be spoilers and it probably makes most sense if you have read as far as we have. I will also be reading some quotes I highlighted from Reacher Said Nothing by Andy Martin, a book I'm reading in parallel in which Andy Martin watches Lee Child write a Jack Reacher novel. For this series, I'm joined by Koen Frolichs, fellow PhD s...
Jul 16, 2021•1 hr 51 min
