Forward Thinking

What happens when we lose our sense of belonging?

Interdisciplinary

Science

Related links:

Karim

Feeling Good app

Berry, J.W., 1997. Immigration, acculturation, and

Psychology researcher Eva Murzyn thinks gaming has more to do with self-exploration than simply siding with the ‘paragon’ or the ‘renegade’ within games.

Science communications student Alex Perry talks to Dr Eva Murzyn about her research into single-player gaming ethics and the effects of playing video games with other people.

Eva Murzyn

Murzyn, E. and Valgaeren, E. (2016). Our Virtual Selves, Our Virtual Morals: Mass Effect Players' Personality and In-Game Choices. International Conference on Interactive Technologies and Games (ITAG).

The Guardian - Learning morality through gaming

Is it ethical for robots to lie to us? 

Edinburgh philosopher Alistair Isaac thinks so! He argues that robots need to be able to lie to us in order to interact better with humans.

Science communications student Alex Perry talks to Dr Alistair Isaac about his recent paper published in the book Robot Ethics 2.0.

Related links:

Alistair Isaac: https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/alistair-isaac

Gizmodo article - Why we'll eventually want our robots to deceive us:https://gizmodo.com/why-well-eventually-want-our-robots-to-deceive-us-1819114004

How do we work out, and act on, what matters to us?

Rosa Hardt, a PhD student in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, explores how emotions influence our ability to make moral judgements and why storytelling is important for the judgements we make.

Find out what made her pursue a PhD in philosophy and get introduced to philosophical concepts such as moral agency and mental time travel as we discuss her research.

Related links:

Rosa Hardt: http://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/rosa-hardt 

Storytelling agents: why narrative rather than mental time travel is fundamental.
Hardt, R. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-017-9530-2

Dr Sarah MacPherson discusses frontal lobe functions in healthy, ageing and damaged brains, her main research interest.

Sarah is a Senior Lecturer in Human Cognitive Neuroscience in the Psychology department of the University of Edinburgh.

Last year she co-authored and published a book, The Handbook of Frontal Lobe Assessment, which discusses the importance of assessing patients using different types of frontal tests.

Maddie Long is a PhD student in Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh. She works with linguists and psychologists to explore questions at the intersection of cognitive ageing, second language acquisition and the pragmatics of human communication.

Maddie is one of six finalists who compete in the UK final of the 3-Minute-Thesis competition on 12 September 2016.

Dementia: it’s difficult to think of a more pressing topic. But what do we really know about dementia and about the ways to prevent it?

Dr Tom Russ tells us that people living in the north of the UK and Sweden are 2 to 3 times more likely to develop dementia.

Why is this the case?

Tom explains that we have some good candidates to explore in more detail.

Francesca Rossi talks to the philosophy lecturer Dr Aidan McGlynn about his paper 'How pornography works: Pornography as

Disclaimer: Whilst not explicit, this podcast does deal with adult themes.

Dr Lauren Hall-Lew, a lecturer in sociolinguistics, talks about her research into tourist attitudes to Scottish accents.

Lauren and her team hit the streets of Edinburgh during a recent Edinburgh Festival Fringe to quiz tourists about their attitudes to Scottish accents in different contexts.

Can we think of accents as a commodity like shortbread or tartan? 
Does authenticity matters to tourists, even if it means they can’t understand what someone is saying?