Broken Area

Matthew Murphy is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Salem State University in Massachusetts, and will be a Visiting Assistant Professor at UMass Lowell this upcoming fall, teaching statistics and research methods.

He earned his B.S. in Interdisciplinary Psychology/Biology in 2005 from Southampton College of Long Island University, mentored by Dr. Paul Forestell. Research experience there included work at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, and work at Brookhaven National Laboratories on a NASA-funded project on radiation's effects on auditory cognition.

Matt moved on to Tufts University in Boston where he earned his M.S. in 2009 and Ph.D. in 2014, both in Psychology, under the mentorship of Bob Cook in the Avian Visual Cognition lab. His work with pigeons included absolute and relational control of auditory sequences, auditory entropy, rule-learning, spatial frequency perception, and intraocular visual memory.

Matt's research interests include intraocular visual memory and self-recognition in animals.

We talked about what got him into the field, why Bob Cook's lab is full of people who give great talks, about a life in science and his dissertation work as well as some of his recent stuff that he just published in JEP with Dan Brooks and Bob Cook.

Thanks again to Red Arms for letting me mash up their music in the closing theme. Buy their music now.

We had a bit of time on Friday afternoon so we went for a little drive and talked about Icelandic names. They list their phonebook by first names there. They are insane. We then went to a pawn shop. I've never been to a pawn shop, so, well, that was fun.

Then it was Saturday and off to groceries, but, no gin and pernod! Yeah, we went shopping early as Isabelle is off on an artspedition this afternoon. She's going up north of where we typically camp in Lake Superior Provincial Park.

Oh hey, Isabelle has an Etsy shop, you should buy stuff from there. (The words 'Etsy shop' are linked there, oh and there too).

What is a lake? What makes a lake a lake? I figure it is arbitrary.

So today we combined the standard grocery shopping podcast with the bonus of us getting ready for a social learning opportunity for kids with autism. These 'SLOs' allow kids with autism to get out, do an activity and meet other people. Isabelle set this one up, mentioned it on Facebook and the next thing you know a local reporter, Katie Huckson showed up. Follow her on twitter.

Now I didn't know what a Mandala was. I knew what a Mandela was though, and this led to hilarity.

Then, off to the groceries.

We brought Jon along this time which was fun. You know what? We've been podcasting for then years, cool eh?

Neil McMillan is a postdoctoral researcher in the psychology department at the University of Alberta. Neil completed his undergraduate degree (a BSc(Hons)) in 2007 with Angelo Santi at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, ON and then moved on to graduate school at the University of Western Ontario. He completed his MSc and later his PhD (in 2013) under the supervision of Bill Roberts. We have something in common there as I did a postdoc with Bill Roberts back in the mid 90s.

We talked about a few things in this episode, including my bizarre inability to remember Neil's name for like the past 3 years.

Of course we talked science too. Neil is interested in spatial memory and so am I. That said, no matter what, timing keeps pulling him back in. He also is first author of a pretty cool review paper that you should check out. We talked about hierarchical representations and cue conflict experiments as well, which I am quite fond of....

His recent JEP paper with his two postdoc supervisors was another topic that we got in to, they have found an effect in reversal learning that you should read about.

Finally, we also talked about the future of the discipline.

Thanks again to Red Arms for the background closing music. Buy their music now.

Today is the 11th anniversary of us arriving back in Sault Ste. Marie from Newfoundland. So, we celebrated by podcasting! Actually, umm, well it is Saturday and we had to get groceries.

We just had a really fun camping trip up at Agawa Bay in Lake Superior Provincial Park. We were up there for four days and Jon had trouble finding wifi.

There has been a lot of talk in town about the Algoma Central Railway, specifically the passenger service between Sault Ste. Marie and Hearst, ON. The train has been shut down for now, which is rough on some people.

While up at Agawa we ran into some faux bikers. I, for some reason, found them really annoying.....

It is our wedding anniversary today, so you will notice a theme today. We talked about how French on the internet, and in general, doesn't get the respect it deserves and it is annoying. This seems especially true on the web. People don't seem to care that missing accents, for example, ARE SPELLING MISTAKES.

In exciting news, Isabelle almost got killed by someone in the parking lot, so that was fun.

Our city is slowly changing, though it is still pretty far behind other places.

I got gin today that came with a handy bottle of tonic, what a time to be alive. We talked a bit about our wedding, where Isabelle's cousin married us, which was pretty damned cool. Oddly, her cousin was born in Austin, TX, where her dad was a psychology professor. Oh and Isabelle's aunt looks like Isabelle but older.

We ended by listening to a little Sinatra and realized that he just talked for the most part.

You know, I have no idea if this eat local thing is worth it, but, it ain't cheap. For example, I bought some broccoli and some garlic at the local farmers' market, and it was FOURTEEN BUCKS. So, of course we talked about that.

We talked about a show Isabelle has been watching called Survivors. It basically involves people surviving an apocalypse of some sort and screaming a lot.

This led us into a discussion of shows that stream only, or go to streaming first. Is there a difference between such shows and traditional ones? If so, what is the difference?

It really is amazing how quickly everything with entertainment changed. We don't watch much stuff that is not streaming any more. Mostly when we watch traditional TV it is when the PVR has recorded something.

Chris Sturdy is a professor of psychology and member of the neuroscience and mental health institute at the University of Alberta.

Chris has a BA in psychology from the University of Windsor as well as an MA and a PhD from Queens University in Kingston Ontario.

He studies the neuroethology of song learning and more generally songbird communication. I was really happy he wanted to be my first guest on the podcast.

We talked about a lot of different things including the influence that other researchers have had on Chris, the future of comparative cognition and the ever complicated world of gene expression in learning.

Thanks to Red Arms for allowing me to mash up their music with quotes from a bunch of people in the closing theme. Buy their music. NOW.

We promised a camping episode. We didn't record a camping episode. Instead, you get a short grocery cast.

We talked about our camping trip though, so that counts. We also covered the marriage equality decision in the States, the health care decision in the States and that whole evil flag thing.

Oh and I remembered the vinegar.

Yup, back in the backyard!

Jon had his graduation and it was great. We are really proud of hm, interestingly he doesn't care.

We talked about who listens to us, and why? Who the hell are you people?

It is St. Jean Baptiste Day so celebrate your inner French Canadian!