The Nature & Nurture Podcast

Dr. Arik Kershenbaum is an evolutionary biologist and lecturer at the University of Cambridge with expertise in studying animal communication. In this episode we discuss his book, The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy, and the many universal features of evolution and communication that we might expect to find in alien life. 

Dr. Julia Marshall is a postdoctoral researcher at Boston College, where she studies children's cooperative development, moral development, and desire to punish. In this episode we discuss Julia's background in psychology, how moral values can be studied empirically in children, the developmental factors that lead to the desire to punish and cooperate, and compare children's and adults' prosocial norms. Learn more about Julia's work at: https://www.juliaannemarshall.com/  Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:25 - What first got Julia interested in psychology 3:48 - How is morality studied empirically? 6:41 - Are children's moral beliefs innate, or socially constructed? 7:37 - Children and adults have different views on punishment 13:44 - How psychological studies with children differs from studies with adults 16:18 - Sampling bias in psychology research 17:40 - Studying cooperative behavior vs. antisocial behavior 19:57 - Social behavior in humans vs. animals 24:38 - How third-party punishment arises in humans 31:04 - Fairness as expectation of norms 33:15 - Is all prosocial behavior inherently selfish? 38:27 - Conformity vs. following one's conscience 42:51 - How temperament and aggression influence cooperation 46:29 - Julia's current and future research

Dr. Ryan Boyd is a computational social and behavioral scientist at Lancaster University. In this episode, we discuss Ryan's background in psychology, his transition from experimental to computational psychology, and his exposure to natural language processing. Additionally, we discuss how natural language processing research can be used to analyze text and predict personality, behavior, and authorship. Finally, we discuss the ethics of data collection on social media, and forms of data science that may be used to protect privacy. 

Dr. Danbee Kim is the pioneer of field neuroscience: the non-invasive neuroscientific study of animals in their natural habitats. In this episode we discuss Danbee's motivation to create field neuroscience, the amazing neurobiology of cuttlefish, and Danbee's field neuroscience work on cuttlefish and humans for her PhD dissertation. She currently works at the UK-based company NeuroGears, focusing on building collaborative projects that use storytelling and interactive experiences to help people apply scientific methods of understanding to their daily lives. Learn more about Danbee's work and find her graphic novel "The First VIRS" at: http://www.danbeekim.org/

Dr. Brad Duchaine is a Professor of Psychology at Dartmouth College, where he runs the Social Perception Lab. Sarah Herald is a Psychology PhD Student working in the Social Perception Lab. In this episode we talk about the neuropsychology of social perception, facial recognition, and face processing disorders including prosopagnosia (the inability to recognize faces) and prosopometamorphopsia (PMO; distortions in face perception). Learn more about their research, and get in contact for a research study if you or someone you know has a face processing disorder at: https://lab.faceblind.org/index.html

Dr. Manoj Doss is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins University. In this episode we discuss his background in neuropsychopharmacology and his research studying the effects of psychedelic drugs on episodic memory and cognition. 

Dr. Kevin Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. In this episode we discuss his background in genetics and neuroscience, the evolution of cognition, and the interplay of genes and environment in shaping human behavior, philosophy of mind, and his book Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are. Learn more about Kevin's work at: https://www.kjmitchell.com/

Dr. Eric Schwitzgebel is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. In this episode we discuss his thoughts on "in-between" beliefs, moral philosophy, and why most theories of consciousness are crazy.

Dr. David McKemy is a Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Southern California. He is an expert in the neurobiology of pain. 

Dr. Tor Wager is a Professor of Neuroscience at Dartmouth College, where he runs the Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience Laboratory and conducts research on emotion and belief. Learn more about his work at: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/canlab/