Bestselling author known for making complex topics accessible to readers, Tom Vanderbilt's recent book is Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning. Rather than buying into the idea that learning is for kids, Tom takes the "beginner's mind" to challenging new skills, such as singing, juggling, and jewelery making, where he starts at ground zero and works to achieve a level of competence. Rolf, Joe, and Tom discuss the value of learning for its own sake, brain plasticisty in new skill learning, how drawing can be a meditative practice while shifting processing to earlier regions in the brain, and many other topics.

We forgot to ask about a CogNation discount, but Tom Vanderbilt's book is available here at Amazon

Special Guest: Tom Vanderbilt.

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

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. T

Special Guest: Bernard Baars.

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.

Discussion paper:

Special Guests: David Rosen and Scott Miles.

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. The Frey Effect was proposed to be involved in attacks on the US embassy in Cuba. Could this also be going on in the US embassy in China? Rolf and Joe discuss further, and give a call out for any expertise that could be added.

In this half-hour episode, Rolf and Joe discuss research by Jennifer Mitchell and colleagues ("Dopamine, time perception, and future time perspective") showing that the drug tolcapone, which selectively increases dopamine in frontal cortical regions, has the effect of reducing the error in estimating how much time has passed. Individuals tend to systematicaly underestimate how much time has passed (think of impatient kids asking "are we there yet?"), and in this double-blind study, tolcapone nearly eliminated this effect, most dramatically for a 60 second interval.

Implications of the study are discussed, including what this says about an "internal clock", whether you should rush to get this drug, and how time perception is related to depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders. We do not discuss the role of tolcapone in ending the world.

Since 1999, National Novel Writing Month has exploded in popularity, becoming one of the most creatively productive events in the world every November. Participants buckle down and write a 50,000-word novel in a month, many enjoying the social support from the NaNoWriMo community.

Founder Chris Baty joins us to talk about what he's been up to lately, as well as share some thoughts gained from his writing career. We talk about creativity, the power (or not-power, depending on your inclination) of narrative, what we would contribute to a post-apocalyptic team, and the anxiety of wanting to contribute more.

Special Guest: Chris Baty.

30 min episode

Paper:

OR access the database yourself at:

Season 2 premiere!

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. A repertoire of responses (such as avoidance) referred to as the "behavioral immune system" is a way for humans to avoid pathogens BEFORE our biochemical immune system encounters them. A pandemic such as COVID-19 may trigger this behavioral immune system, but using far different information than our evolutionary ancestors ever had.

Joshua Ackerman's research page at Michigan

Special Guest: Joshua Ackerman.

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

Chris Mattman's page at NASA

More information about the Memex program at DARPA can be found here.

Chris's forthcoming book, Machine Learning with Tensor Flow (2nd ed.) will be available soon. CogNation listeners can get 40% off all Manning products by using the code "podcogn20" when ordering from [Manning Publications](manning.com).

Special Guest: Chris Mattmann.