BJKS Podcast

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, there are plenty of random tangents.

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
0:01:02: What are EDGE workshops and who takes part?
0:12:08: The evolution of EDGE part 1
0:24:00: Metaphors in art and science
0:32:58: The evolution of EDGE part 2
0:41:05: The magical benefits of being an EDGE member
0:54:20: Separating/combining art and science
1:02:25: Outsider art/terminology in art
1:16:02: Coco's path to empirical aesthetics
1:22:28: Empirical aesthetics/neuroaesthetics

Podcast links

• Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast

EDGE links

• Website: https://edge-neuro.art/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edge_neuroscience_art/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/edge_neuro
• Twitter Coco: https://twitter.com/cocoalaska

Ben's links

• Website: www.bjks.page/
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ

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 conversations every other Friday. You can find the podcast on all podcasting platforms (e.g., Spotify, Apple/Google Podcasts, etc.).

Timestamps
0:00:20: The parable of the cubist chicken & the need for formal models in psychology
0:15:48: Why do psychologists not use formal models more?
0:26:23: Models specify the relationship between variables
0:40:02: What is the difference between a formal model and a theory?
0:50:46: If we add formal modelling to the curriculum, what should we take out?

Podcast links

• Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast

Paul's links

• Website: http://smaldino.com
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=AwHfbP0AAAAJ
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/psmaldino

Ben's links

• Website: www.bjks.page/
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ

References
Eisenberg, E. M. (1984). Ambiguity as strategy in organizational communication. Communication monographs.
Gigerenzer, G. (1977-present). Everything he ever wrote. Every Journal he ever published in.
Kauffman, S. A. (1976). Articulation of parts explanation in biology and the rational search for them. In Topics in the Philosophy of Biology (pp. 245-263). Springer, Dordrecht.
Muthukrishna, M., & Henrich, J. (2019). A problem in theory. Nature Human Behaviour.
Rabin, M. (2013). An approach to incorporating psychology into economics. American Economic Review.
Smaldino, P. E. (2017). Models are stupid, and we need more of them. Computational social psychology.
Smaldino, P. (2019). Better methods can't make up for mediocre theory. Nature.
Smaldino, P. (2020). How to translate a verbal theory into a formal model. Social Psychology.
Smaldino, P. (2020). How to Build A Strong Theoretical Foundation. PsyArXiv.
Wimsatt, W. C. (1972, January). Complexity and organization. In PSA: Proceedings of the biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (Vol. 1972, pp. 67-86). D. Reidel Publishing.

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 related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New conversations every other Friday. You can find the podcast on all major podcasting platforms (e.g., Spotify, Apple/Google Podcasts, etc.).

Timestamps
0:00:08: How Jonathan got into the field he currently works in
0:18:55: Discussing Jonathan's paper "Moral choice when harming is unavoidable"
0:35:03: Framing of moral decisions
0:42:43: Which studies to include in a paper?
0:48:46: Simple experiments
0:55:39: How Jonathan's research fits into a marketing department
1:02:33: Open science
1:09:58: File drawers and preregistration (with additional contributions from Jonathan's 6-month old child)

Podcast links

• Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast

Jonathan's links

• Website: www.london.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-profiles/b/berman-j-z-1
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=iIMbl9QAAAAJ&hl=de&oi=ao
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/jberman81

Ben's links

• Website: www.bjks.page/
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ

References
Berman, J. Z., & Kupor, D. (2020). Moral choice when harming is unavoidable. Psychological Science.
Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2011). False-positive psychology: Undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant. Psychological Science.

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 about open science practices.

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 (Apple/Google Podcasts, Spotify, etc.).

Timestamps
0:00:11: The origin of Toby's research project on risk perception about COVID-19
0:13:18: What Toby would do differently if he could go back in time
0:20:45: Criticism of COVID-19 research
0:29:17: How to do good science during natural experiments
0:44:09: Open Code, (Jupyter/RMarkdown) Notebooks, and Python
1:07:43: Comparing COVID responses across and within countries
1:27:36: Practicalities of doing research on COVID-19
1:34:19: External validity of psychological research
1:48:30: Toby's acute awareness of how unimportant his research is
2:06:32: Simulations to ensure your study actually does what you want it to do
2:14:34: Comparing Toby and Ben's COVID studies

Toby's links

• Website: https://tobywise.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/toby_wise
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=_PD-jwIAAAAJ&hl=en

Podcast links

• Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast

Ben's links

• Website: www.bjks.page/
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ

References/papers mentioned
Camerer, C. F., Dreber, A., Holzmeister, F., Ho, T. H., Huber, J., Johannesson, M., ... & Altmejd, A. (2018). Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015. Nature Human Behaviour.
Levitt, S. D., & List, J. A. (2007). What do laboratory experiments measuring social preferences reveal about the real world?. Journal of Economic perspectives.
Korn, C. W., Sharot, T., Walter, H., Heekeren, H. R., & Dolan, R. J. (2014). Depression is related to an absence of optimistically biased belief updating about future life events. Psychological medicine.
Kunz, L., Schröder, T. N., Lee, H., Montag, C., Lachmann, B., Sariyska, R., ... & Fell, J. (2015). Reduced grid-cell–like representations in adults at genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease. Science.
Kuper-Smith, B. J., Doppelhofer, L. M., Oganian, Y., Rosenblau, G., & Korn, C. (2020). Optimistic beliefs about the personal impact of COVID-19. PsyArXiv.
Shah, A. K., Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2012). Some consequences of having too little. Science.
Shah, A. K., Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2019). An exercise in self-replication: Replicating Shah, Mullainathan, and Shafir (2012). Journal of Economic Psychology.
Wise, T., Zbozinek, T. D., Michelini, G., Hagan, C. C., & Mobbs, D. (2020). Changes in risk perception and self-reported protective behaviour during the first week of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Royal Society Open Science.

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 Kuper-Smith. New long-form conversations every other third Friday. You can find the podcast on all major podcasting platforms (e.g., Apple/Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, etc.) and on YouTube.

Timestamps
0:00:50: Fashion modelling in times of COVID
0:05:40: Antonia's path in modelling (with many digressions on the fashion industry and life as a model)
0:51:34: Tips for photographers from a professional model


Podcast links

• Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast

Antonia's links

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/antoniawesseloh/
• Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonia_Wesseloh

Ben's links

• Website: www.bjks.blog/
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ

Other

• Trustworthy modelling agencies (in Germany): https://www.velma-models.de/agenturen/

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 neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New long-form conversations every other Friday. You can find the podcast on all major podcasting platforms (e.g., Apple/Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, etc.) and on YouTube.

Timestamps
0:00:05: Inviting guests onto a podcast
0:09:45-0:16:30: An interlude on Steven Pinker
0:30:57: Building a podcast
0:41:00: Conversation or interview?
0:47:00: How to conduct a good interview
1:05:00: Combining PhD work with podcasting
1:17:34: A brief interlude on Cody's interview with Mark Granovetter
1:23:15: Jobs after PhD
1:30:54: Cody's new podcast 'Notes from the Field'
1:37:37: Cody's not-so-secret obsession with anthropology
1:44:19: Cody's preprint 'The intuitive anthropologist'
2:10:42: Finding a problem for your PhD, and finding a path as a scientist


Links
Podcast links

• Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast

Cody's links

• Website: www.codykommers.com/
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=ImTtx_kAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/codykommers
• Preprint: https://psyarxiv.com/3sc96/

Ben's links

• Website: www.bjks.blog/
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ

References
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. Basic books.
Kommers, C. (2020). The Intuitive Anthropologist: Why “Intuitive Psychology” Falls Short for Making Sense of Those Who Are Different. PsyArXiv.

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 applications to eating disorders and pregnancy. We also talk more broadly about her experiences of starting her own lab and work as a new faculty member.
 
BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New long-form conversations every other Friday. You can find the podcast on all major podcasting platforms (e.g., Apple/Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, etc.) and on YouTube.
 
Timestamps
0:00:05 How Catherine got into studying body perception
0:03:55 Rubber hands, monkey hands, and invisible hands
0:16:12 Catherine's postdoc with Henrik Ehrsson
0:20:33 Eating disorders, body satisfaction, and bodily illusions
0:41:09 Pregnancy and bodily illusions
1:10:13 Starting a lab and teaching (at York University)
1:22:57 Mentorship and learning as a faculty member
1:35:12 Who Catherine would like to work with (BSc, MSc & PhD students, postdocs)

 Links
 Podcast links

• Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast

Catherine's links

• York profile: www.york.ac.uk/psychology/staff/academicstaff/cp1039/
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=vwu2AvgAAAAJ
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/cejpreston

Ben's links

• Website: www.bjks.blog/
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ

 General info
 - Rubber hand illusion
 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DphlhmtGRqI
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multisensory_integration#Rubber_hand_illusion
- Full-body illusion
Video (about the body swap illusion): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rawY2VzN4-c
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_transfer_illusion

 References
Byrne, A., & Preston, C. (2019). Mr Fantastic Meets The Invisible Man: An Illusion of Invisible Finger Stretching. Perception
Kirk, E., & Preston, C. (2019). Development and validation of the Body Understanding Measure for Pregnancy Scale (BUMPS) and its role in antenatal attachment. Psychological Assessment
Preston, C., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2016). Illusory obesity triggers body dissatisfaction responses in the insula and anterior cingulate cortex.
Preston, C., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2018). Implicit and explicit changes in body satisfaction evoked by body size illusions: Implications for eating disorder vulnerability in women. PloS One
Preston, C., Kuper-Smith, B. J., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2015). Owning the body in the mirror: The effect of visual perspective and mirror view on the full-body illusion. Scientific Reports

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 interpretation can be applied to non-movement contexts, including the stock market and meteorology.

Time stamps

0:00:40 We don't really know what the readiness potential is

0:01:52 The classic interpretation of the readiness potential

0:16:39 Aaron's interpretation of the readiness potential

0:31:04 The origin of Aaron's interpretation

0:42:33 Applying Aaron's model to non-movement contexts: the stock market and meteorology

0:54:40 - Aaron's plans for studying the readiness potential in the next few years: breathing, individual differences, anticipation

Links

Podcast links

• Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
•  Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast

Aaron's links 

• Chapman profile: https://www.chapman.edu/our-faculty/aaron-schurger
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=lBSjfagAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/schurgerlab

Ben's links: 

• Website: https://bjks.blog/
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Papers mentioned

Fried, I., Mukamel, R., & Kreiman, G. (2011). Internally generated preactivation of single neurons in human medial frontal cortex predicts volition. Neuron

Kagaya, K., & Takahata, M. (2010). Readiness discharge for spontaneous initiation of walking in crayfish. Journal of Neuroscience

Kornhuber, H. H., & Deecke, L. (1965/2016). Hirnpotentialänderungen bei Willkürbewegungen und passiven Bewegungen des Menschen: Bereitschaftspotential und reafferente Potentiale/Brain potential changes in voluntary and passive movements in humans: readiness potential and reafferent potentials. Pflüger's Archiv

Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W., & Pearl, D. K. (1983). Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity. Brain

Schotanus, P., & Schurger, A. (2020). Spontaneous Volatility: Fooled by Reflexive Randomness. Journal of Behavioral Finance

Schurger, A., Sitt, J. D., & Dehaene, S. (2012). An accumulator model for spontaneous neural activity prior to self-initiated movement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Schurger, A., Mylopoulos, M., & Rosenthal, D. (2016). Neural antecedents of spontaneous voluntary movement: a new perspective. Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Schurger, A. (2018). Specific relationship between the shape of the readiness potential, subjective decision time, and waiting time predicted by an accumulator model with temporally autocorrelated input noise. Eneuro

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 and high-level spatial coding principles in the brain (e.g. grid cells), the development of cognitive maps in humans, and a novel form of using fMRI for eye-tracking he co-developed with Markus Frey), to the relationship between electrophysiology studies in animals and fMRI studies in humans, education in neuroscience, and science communication.  

Timestamps:  

• 0:00:15 MR-based eye-tracking  
• 0:22:50 Switching to Python   
• 0:26:20 Grid Cells and vision   
• 0:39:59 Development of the cognitive map in humans   
• 0:45:10 Electrophysiology and fMRI   
• 1:02:25 The interdisciplinary education of neuroscientists   
• 1:20:17 Twitter, science communication, and this podcast   
• 1:35:38 Matthias's plans for the future, complicated by COVID   

Links:   

• Podcast website:  
  • https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/   
  • https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast   
• Matthias's links:  
  • https://matthiasnau.com/   
  • https://twitter.com/NauMatt   
  • https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=r83cbFMAAAAJ   
• Ben's links:  
  • https://bjks.blog/   
  • https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ   

• Grid cells info:  
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_cell   
  • http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Grid_cells   

Papers mentioned:   

Killian, N. J., Jutras, M. J., & Buffalo, E. A. (2012). A map of visual space in the primate entorhinal cortex. Nature.   

Nau, M., Schröder, T. N., Bellmund, J. L., & Doeller, C. F. (2018). Hexadirectional coding of visual space in human entorhinal cortex. Nature neuroscience.   

Nau, M., Julian, J. B., & Doeller, C. F. (2018). How the brain’s navigation system shapes our visual experience. Trends in cognitive sciences.   

Wills, T. J., Cacucci, F., Burgess, N., & O'Keefe, J. (2010). Development of the hippocampal cognitive map in preweanling rats. Science.