CogNation

Episode 34: Tom Vanderbilt: Beginners

March 22nd, 2021  |  Season 2  |  51 mins 30 secs

beginners, book, brain, cognition, learning, neuroscience, psychology, skill, tom vanderbilt, vanderbilt

We talk with author Tom Vanderbilt about his new book, Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning.

Episode 33: Flawless Predictions For 2021

January 22nd, 2021  |  Season 2  |  47 mins 58 secs

2021, brain, cognition, cognitive science, future, jet pack, predictions

Enough with 2020. Rolf and Joe present their predictions for what lies ahead in 2021.....

Episode 32: On Consciousness with Bernard Baars

January 2nd, 2021  |  Season 2  |  1 hr 14 mins

baars, bernard baars, brain, cognition, cognitive science, consciousness, global workspace theory, philosophy

Joe and Rolf talk to Dr. Bernard Baars, a leader in the field of consciousness research. Dr. Baars has recently published "On Consciousness", which is a compendium on his work integrating research in psychology and neuroscience on what consciousness is and how it functions.

Episode 31: Music and the Brain: Guests David Rosen and Scott Miles

December 7th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  49 mins 55 secs

brain, cognition, david rosen, eeg, music, scott miles, secret chord laboratories, surprise

David Rosen and Scott Miles of Secret Chord Laboratories (secretchordlaboratories.com) talk to Joe and Rolf about musical preference, the role of surprise in these preferences, what's going on in the brain, and how COVID is affecting the way we listen to music.

Episode 30: When Microwaves Continue to Attack

November 23rd, 2020  |  Season 2  |  28 mins 41 secs

brain, china, cognition, cuba, embassy, frey effect, microwave, pulsed microwave radiation

An update on Episode 4, where we first discussed the phenomenon of the "Frey Effect" in which sounds are heard as a result of pulsed microwave radiation. Does this give a clue about further incidents in the US embassy in China?

Episode 29: Time Perception and Dopamine

October 12th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  29 mins 51 secs

Rolf and Joe discuss research on a dopamine-enhancing drug that improves time perception.

Episode 28: Chris Baty: National Novel Writing Month, Creativity, and Life as a Narrative

August 10th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  1 hr 3 mins

baty, brain, chris baty, cognition, creative, creativity, nanowrimo, national novel writing month, novel

Chris Baty, the founder of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) talks with us about why creativity feels good, the way it can spread to other aspects of our life, and in what ways life is (or is not) like a narrative.

Episode 27: The Connectome

May 12th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  31 mins 23 secs

brain, c elegans, cognition, connectome, fruit fly, neuron, neuroscience

30 min episode
A connectome is a representation of every connection between neurons in the brain. Recent brain-slicing technology, in addition to image recognition tools, has begun to make this science-fiction idea become a reality. Rolf and Joe discuss the recent publication of the largest completed connectome to date, that of the fruit fly drosophilia. The database for the connectome is publicly available, and includes huge amounts of data about every one of the approximately 25,000 neurons mapped to date.

Episode 26: COVID-19 and the Behavioral Immune System: Joshua Ackerman

March 24th, 2020  |  Season 2  |  55 mins 35 secs

behavior, behavioral immune system, brain, cognition, corona virus, covid-19, evolutionary psychology, joshua ackerman, michigan, pandemic, psychology, social psychology

How do people behave in a pandemic? Joshua Ackerman of the University of Michigan talks about how we alter our behavior in the face of pathogens from the perspective of social and evolutionary psychology. A repertoire of responses (such as avoidance) referred to as the "behavioral immune system" is discussed as a way for humans to avoid pathogens BEFORE our biochemical immune system encounters them.

Episode 25: NASA Data Scientist Chris Mattmann

February 22nd, 2020  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 2 mins

ai, dark web, darpa, machine learning, mars, nasa, neuroscience, space exploration

Chris Mattman, Principal Data Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, talks with us about bridging the gap between lab and data scientists, his work unearthing the dark web with DARPA's Memex program, machine learning in autonomous planetary rovers, and other cool stuff he's been doing.

Episode 24: Childrens' Learning and Play: Guest David Sobel

January 27th, 2020  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 15 mins

causality, child, children, childrens museums, development, learning, mind, museums, parent-child interaction, parenting, philosophy, psychology, scientific research

David Sobel, a developmental psychologist from Brown University, talks to us about the importance of play in learning. He has recently been collaborating with researchers around the country to investigate how children interact with exhibits in childrens' museums. One recent finding we discuss is that parent-child interaction styles can have a strong influence on what children learn.

Episode 23: Flawless Predictions for the 2020s

January 1st, 2020  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 20 mins

ai, autonomous vehicles, bitcoin, farming, lasers, neuroscience, robots, smart highways

The Cognation crew discusses the future. Rolf and Joe share their bold predictions for the upcoming decade, which include such insights as "CRISPR Chips, Made with CRISPR to be Crisper (TM)," Disney Bitcoin, and the Robopocalypse.

Episode 22: The Neuroscience of Free Will: Guest Aaron Schurger

December 12th, 2019  |  Season 1  |  57 mins 12 secs

conscious will, consciousness, free will, libet, neuroscience, philosophy, schurger

Guest Dr. Aaron Schurger talks to us about his research on the meaning of the "readiness potential", which has been referred to as "the brain signature of the will". Although this neural signal was already famous from research in the 1960s, it was Benjamin Libet's infamous experiments in the 1980s that proportedly showed that the readiness potential preceded an act of free will by a few hundred milliseconds. More recently (in press), Dr. Schurger and his colleagues have convincingly demonstrated that the readiness potential is not in fact predictive of an act of free will, but instead comes from a lack of a proper experimental control.

Episode 21: Pain perception and treatment: Guest Mike Trujillo

November 3rd, 2019  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 1 min

brain, hird, karuna labs, mind, pain, pain modulation, pain perception, trujillo, virtual reality

Guest Dr. Michael Trujillo of Karuna Labs talks to us about pain perception and recent research on understanding how pain works.

Episode 20: Improving medical treatment in hearing loss: Guest Erick Gallun

October 21st, 2019  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 4 mins

audiology, audition, brain, cognition, healthcare, hearing, hearing loss, mind, va

Dr. Erick Gallun joins us today to talk about the latest in audiology research, and how it can be applied to help those with a range of hearing problems. His research has focused on rehabilitation with Veteran's Association (VA) patients. Rapid-response medical care and an understanding of how hearing is affected by brain damage are critical areas in need of research. Advances in portable computing have made widespread assessment possible, and Virtual Reality applications show promise for cost-effective and standardized assessment.

Episode 19: Concussions, TBI, and Sports

September 19th, 2019  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 29 secs

brain, cognition, concussion, football, nfl, tbi, traumatic brain injury

Joe and Rolf discuss recent evidence to help understand the relationship between playing high-impact sports and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs).