BJKS Podcast

Tessa Rusch is a postdoc working on computational modelling of social interactions at Caltech in the labs of Ralph Adolphs and John O'Doherty. She is also part of COVID-Dynamic project, a large-scale longitudinal study on the psychological effects of the COVID pandemic.  In this conversation, we talk about Tessa's experiences of being part of such a large project, about her move to the US just before the pandemic, and about her review on computational models and bevioural tasks of Theory of Mind.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.).Timestamps0:00:04: Before Tessa's PhD0:04:07: Tessa's first year in the US, during the pandemic0:16:51: Tessa's original plan for her postdoc with Ralph Adolphs and John O'Doherty 0:24:22: How COVID-Dynamic got started0:32:42: The practicalities of running a large collaborative study0:43:37: Social changes during an extremely variable time0:55:03: Working with complex data sets1:14:02: Doing COVID research while working on other projects1:20:48: Discussing Tessa's review article about Theory of Mind from Neuropsychologia1:47:27: Tessa's final words of wisdomPodcast linksWebsite: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcastTessa's linksWebsite: https://www.hss.caltech.edu/people/tessa-ruschGoogle Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=OzT7c-oAAAAJTwitter: https://twitter.com/tessa_ruschBen's linksWebsite: www.bjks.blog/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJReferencesKuper-Smith, B. J., Doppelhofer, L. M., Oganian, Y., Rosenblau, G., & Korn, C. (2020). Optimistic beliefs about the personal impact of COVID-19. PsyArXiv.Post, T., Van den Assem, M. J., Baltussen, G., & Thaler, R. H. (2008). Deal or no deal? decision making under risk in a large-payoff game show. American Economic Review.Rusch, T., Han, Y., Liang, D., Hopkins, A., Lawrence, C., Maoz, U., ... & Stanley, D. (2021). COVID-Dynamic: A large-scale multifaceted longitudinal study of socioemotional and behavioral change across the pandemic. PsyArXiv.Rusch, T., Steixner-Kumar, S., Doshi, P., Spezio, M., & Gläscher, J. (2020). Theory of mind and decision science: towards a typology of tasks and computational models. Neuropsychologia.van Baar, J. M., Chang, L. J., & Sanfey, A. G. (2019). The computational and neural substrates of moral strategies in social decision-making. Nature communications.Van den Assem, M. J., Van Dolder, D., & Thaler, R. H. (2012). Split or steal? Cooperative behavior when the stakes are large. Management Science.

Joe Hilgard is Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at Illinois State University. In this conversation, we discuss his work on detecting and reporting scientific fraud. 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.).Timestamps0:00:05: Are we only catching the dumb fraudsters?0:08:45: Why does Joe always sign his peer reviews?0:11:51: Detecting errors during peer review0:17:44: Retractions motivated by Joe's work0:22:19: The whole Zhang affair0:49:19: Ben found errors in a paper. Joe advises what to do next1:04:06: How to separate negligible errors from serious errors that require action1:11:37: When effects are too big to be truePodcast linksWebsite: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcastJoe's linksWebsite: http://crystalprisonzone.blogspot.com/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=FPOHtgQAAAAJTwitter: https://twitter.com/JoeHilgardBen's linksWebsite: www.bjks.blog/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJReferencesBrown, N. J., & Heathers, J. A. (2017). The GRIM test: A simple technique detects numerous anomalies in the reporting of results in psychology. Social Psychological and Personality Science.Callaway, E. (2011). Report finds massive fraud at Dutch universities. Nature News.Friston, K. (2012). Ten ironic rules for non-statistical reviewers. Neuroimage.Heathers, J. A., Anaya, J., van der Zee, T., & Brown, N. J. (2018). Recovering data from summary statistics: Sample parameter reconstruction via iterative techniques (SPRITE) . PeerJ Preprints.Hilgard, Joe's blog post about the Zhang affair: http://crystalprisonzone.blogspot.com/2021/01/i-tried-to-report-scientific-misconduct.htmlHilgard, J. (2021). Maximal positive controls: A method for estimating the largest plausible effect size. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.Hilgard, J. (2019). Comment on Yoon and Vargas (2014): An implausibly large effect from implausibly invariant data. Psychological Science.Lakens, Daniel: blog post on hungry judges: http://daniellakens.blogspot.com/2017/07/impossibly-hungry-judges.htmlMorey, R. D., Chambers, C. D., ... & Zwaan, R. A. (2016). The Peer Reviewers' Openness Initiative. Royal Society Open Science.O'Grady: Write up in Science Magazine about the Zhang affair: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6531/767Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2013). Life after p-hacking. In Meeting of the society for personality and social psychology, New Orleans, LA.Simmons, J. What do true findings look like: Presentation slides available at https://osf.io/93fkq/Stapel's autobiography freely available in English: http://nick.brown.free.fr/stapelYong, E. (2012). The data detective. Nature News.

Eiko Fried is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at Leiden University. He recently published a target article in Psychological Inquiry about the lack of theory building in network and factor models, and how this impedes progress.In this conversation, we talk about that article, problems with theories in psychology, Eiko's general approach to science, and much more.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.).Timestamps0:00:04: Eiko's photography0:03:33: The Lancet Psychiatry profile about Eiko / being a generalist0:15:42: Eiko's "No Committee"0:26:33: Begin discussing Eiko's paper "Lack of theory..."0:49:55: Theories don't have to be correct0:53:02: Model comparison in network and factor models, and constraints of the scientific (publishing) industry1:14:14: Useful fictions in science1:22:03: Writing critiques without pointing fingers1:25:03: Paul Meehl1:28:09: Education in PsychologyPodcast linksWebsite: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcastEiko's linksWebsite: https://eiko-fried.com/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=DUK0qQoAAAAJTwitter: https://twitter.com/EikoFriedBen's linksWebsite: www.bjks.blog/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJPaul Meehl's lectures on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzRWx56_mpAT5yWRI-po-ybK9uAyZNX_zReferencesBorsboom, D. (2013). Theoretical amnesia. Open Science Collaboration Blog.Feyerabend, P. (1993). Against method.Fried, E. I. (2020). Lack of theory building and testing impedes progress in the factor and network literature. Psychological Inquiry.Fried, E. I., Greene, A. L., & Eaton, N. R. (2021). The p factor is the sum of its parts, for now. World Psychiatry.Frith, U. (2020). Fast lane to slow science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.Kellen, D., Davis-Stober, C., Dunn, J. C., & Kalish, M. (2020). The problem of coordination and the pursuit of structural constraints in psychology. PsyArXiv.Kendler, K. S., Aggen, S. H., Werner, M., & Fried, E. I. (2020). A topography of 21 phobic fears: network analysis in an epidemiological sample of adult twins. Psychological Medicine.Meehl, P. E. (1978). Theoretical risks and tabular asterisks: Sir Karl, Sir Ronald, and the slow progress of soft psychology. Journal of consulting and clinical Psychology.Meehl, P. E. (1990). Appraising and amending theories: The strategy of Lakatosian defense and two principles that warrant it. Psychological Inquiry.Meehl, P. E. (1990). Why summaries of research on psychological theories are often uninterpretable. Psychological Reports.Morgan, J. (2019). Eiko Fried: organising incoherence with models, networks, and systems. The Lancet Psychiatry.Smaldino, P. E. (2017). Models are stupid, and we need more of them. Computational Social Psychology.Yarkoni, T. (2020). Implicit realism impedes progress in psychology: Comment on Fried (2020). Psychological Inquiry.

Jesse Geerts is a PhD student at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre at UCL, in the lab of Neil Burgess. We met a few years ago when we were in the same cohort of the Dual Masters in Brain and Mind Sciences, hosted in the first year in London by UCL and in the second year in Paris by UPMC and ENS.In this conversation, we talk about Jesse's new paper in PNAS, what it's like to do his PhD programme, how to know when a paper is ready to be submitted, and a bunch of other topics.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.).Timestamps0:00:05: During the recording, there was a 4-second delay, but I hope I edited it out alright0:01:16: Finishing our PhDs0:15:23: Jesse's experience in the Sainsbury Wellcome PhD Programme0:23:41: Deciding what PhD project to do (and with whom)0:54:15: Ask for help (unless the solution can be googled)0:58:30: Discussion Jesse's PNAS paper1:30:22: Idea for a new podcast: Ben's Roast1:33:45: Evaluating whether a model works1:39:21: When is a paper ready?1:47:00: What's next for Jesse P. Geerts?Podcast linksWebsite: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcastJesse's linksWebsite: https://www.jessegeerts.com/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4xusDVAAAAAJTwitter: https://twitter.com/jesse_geertsJesse's PhD programme: https://www.sainsburywellcome.org/web/content/phd-programmeBen's linksWebsite: www.bjks.blog/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJReferencesGeerts, J. P., Chersi, F., Stachenfeld, K. L., & Burgess, N. (2020). A general model of hippocampal and dorsal striatal learning and decision making. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Geerts, J. P., Stachenfeld, K. L., & Burgess, N. (2019). Probabilistic successor representations with Kalman temporal differences. arXiv.Kuper-Smith, B. J., Doppelhofer, L. M., Oganian, Y., Rosenblau, G., & Korn, C. (2020). Optimistic beliefs about the personal impact of COVID-19. PsyArXiv.Stachenfeld, K. L., Botvinick, M. M., & Gershman, S. J. (2017). The hippocampus as a predictive map. Nature Neuroscience.

Hanne Watkins is an adviser for the Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government. Previously, she was a PhD student and postdoc studying how humans think about morality in the context of war.In this conversation, we talk about Hanne's move from academia to governmental work, and about her previous work on morality in a war context. We also talk about her experience of running a Registered Report, something I've read a fair bit about, but haven't yet gotten around to doing myself.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.).Timestamps0:00:57: How Hanne's work in behavioural insight for the Australian government relates to her previous academic work0:35:34: Registered Reports: Hanne's practical experiences writing a Registered Report0:56:16: Morality in warPodcast linksWebsite: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcastHanne's linksWebsite: https://sites.google.com/view/hannemwatkinsOld blog: https://myscholarlygoop.wordpress.com/BETA: https://behaviouraleconomics.pmc.gov.au/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=e5jaGiUAAAAJTwitter: https://twitter.com/hm_watkinsBen's linksWebsite: www.bjks.blog/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJReferencesThaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2009). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Penguin.Watkins, H. M., & Brandt, M. (2019). The moral landscape of war: A registered report testing how the war context shapes morality's constraints on default representations of possibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Watkins, H. M. (2020). The morality of war: A review and research agenda. Perspectives on Psychological Science.

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.).Timestamps0:01:02: What are EDGE workshops and who takes part?0:12:08: The evolution of EDGE part 10:24:00: Metaphors in art and science0:32:58: The evolution of EDGE part 20:41:05: The magical benefits of being an EDGE member0:54:20: Separating/combining art and science1:02:25: Outsider art/terminology in art1:16:02: Coco's path to empirical aesthetics1:22:28: Empirical aesthetics/neuroaestheticsPodcast linksWebsite: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcastEDGE linksWebsite: https://edge-neuro.art/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edge_neuroscience_art/Twitter: https://twitter.com/edge_neuroTwitter Coco: https://twitter.com/cocoalaskaBen's linksWebsite: www.bjks.blog/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.).Timestamps0:00:20: The parable of the cubist chicken & the need for formal models in psychology0:15:48: Why do psychologists not use formal models more?0:26:23: Models specify the relationship between variables0:40:02: 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 linksWebsite: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcastPaul's linksWebsite: http://smaldino.comGoogle Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=AwHfbP0AAAAJTwitter: https://twitter.com/psmaldinoBen's linksWebsite: www.bjks.blog/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJReferencesEisenberg, 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.).Timestamps0:00:08: How Jonathan got into the field he currently works in0:18:55: Discussing Jonathan's paper "Moral choice when harming is unavoidable"0:35:03: Framing of moral decisions0:42:43: Which studies to include in a paper?0:48:46: Simple experiments0:55:39: How Jonathan's research fits into a marketing department1:02:33: Open science1:09:58: File drawers and preregistration (with additional contributions from Jonathan's 6-month old child)Podcast linksWebsite: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcastJonathan's linksWebsite: www.london.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-profiles/b/berman-j-z-1Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=iIMbl9QAAAAJ&hl=de&oi=aoTwitter: https://twitter.com/jberman81Ben's linksWebsite: www.bjks.blog/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJReferencesBerman, 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.).Timestamps0:00:11: The origin of Toby's research project on risk perception about COVID-190:13:18: What Toby would do differently if he could go back in time0:20:45: Criticism of COVID-19 research0:29:17: How to do good science during natural experiments0:44:09: Open Code, (Jupyter/RMarkdown) Notebooks, and Python1:07:43: Comparing COVID responses across and within countries1:27:36: Practicalities of doing research on COVID-191:34:19: External validity of psychological research1:48:30: Toby's acute awareness of how unimportant his research is2:06:32: Simulations to ensure your study actually does what you want it to do2:14:34: Comparing Toby and Ben's COVID studiesToby's linksWebsite: https://tobywise.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/toby_wiseGoogle Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=_PD-jwIAAAAJ&hl=enPodcast linksWebsite: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcastBen's linksWebsite: www.bjks.blog/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJReferences/papers mentionedCamerer, 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.Timestamps0:00:50: Fashion modelling in times of COVID0:05:40: 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 modelPodcast linksWebsite: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcastAntonia's linksInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/antoniawesseloh/Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonia_WesselohBen's linksWebsite: www.bjks.blog/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJOtherTrustworthy modelling agencies (in Germany): https://www.velma-models.de/agenturen/