Stanford Psychology Podcast

Joseph chats with Prof. Jake Quilty-Dunn, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy and the Center for Cognitive Science Rutgers University. Prof. Quilty-Dunn works primarily in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Much of his research concerns distinctions between kinds of mental representations (such as iconic and discursive formats), mental processes (such as inference and association), and mental systems (such as perception and cognition). He also has broad research interests in philosophy of language, aesthetics and early modern philosophy. In this episode Joseph and Dr. Quilty-Dunn chat about the language of thought (LoT) hypothesis. They discuss the history of the idea, how the LoT differs from natural language, how it shows up in perception and cognition, how it compares to rival formats, and the extent to which it is learnable in development.  References:Quilty-Dunn, J., Porot, N., & Mandelbaum, E. (2023). The best game in town: The reemergence of the language-of-thought hypothesis across the cognitive sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 46, e261

Joseph and Dr. Lisa Damour discuss the portrayal of teenage emotions in Pixar's "Inside Out 2", with a focus on anxiety. Dr. Damour, who consulted for the film as a clinical psychologist, shares her experience, the teenage emotions explored in the film, how scientific insights are integrated into the story, and the societal issues it addresses.Dr Damour is the author of three New York Times best sellers: Untangled, Under Pressure, and The Emotional Lives of Teenagers, which have been translated into twenty-three languages. She co-hosts the Ask Lisa podcast, works in collaboration with UNICEF, and is recognized as a thought leader by the American Psychological Association. Dr. Damour is a regular contributor to The New York Times and CBS News and the creator of Untangling 10to20, a digital library of premium content to support teens and those who care for them.Dr. Damour serves as a Senior Advisor to the Schubert Center for Child Studies at Case Western Reserve University and has written numerous academic papers, chapters, and books related to education and child development. She maintains a clinical practice and also speaks to schools, professional organizations, and corporate groups around the world on the topics of child and adolescent development, family mental health, and adult well-being.

Prof. Nicholas Shea discusses concepts in humans, animals, and machines, exploring how different systems develop online representations. The podcast delves into implicit versus explicit knowledge, representations in computational cognitive science, and the acquisition of knowledge in philosophy and cognitive science. An insightful conversation on mental simulation, AI challenges, and the debate between empiricism and nativism in neural network modeling.

Dr. Nilam Ram discusses the Human Screenome Project capturing phone interactions every 5 seconds. They explore individual-specific studies in psychology, challenges in analyzing massive data sets, the use of AI models for behavior prediction, and personalized smartphone interventions for mental health. The conversation also touches on the speaker's transition from economics to psychology and analyzing human behavior time series data.

Dr. Johannes Eichstaedt discusses using social media to understand mental illnesses like depression, the challenges of predicting rarer disorders, exploring user demographics on social media, using phone sensors for depression prediction, and the clinical applications of big data indicators in mental health diagnosis. The conversation also covers the complexities of using social media data for mental health analysis, privacy issues, and the impact of social media use on different demographics.

Anjie chats with Dr. Laura Gwilliams.  Laura is an assistant professor at Stanford University, jointly appointed between Stanford Psychology, Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and Stanford Data Science. Her work is focused on understanding the neural representations and operations that give rise to speech comprehension in the human brain. In this episode, Laura introduces her recent paper titled” Large-scale single-neuron speech sound encoding across the depth of human cortex”. She shares the insights we can derive from a recently developed technique called Neuropixels, which is essentially a tiny needle that can be placed into the human brain and record from hundreds of neurons at the same time. She also shares her personal journey into this line of work.  If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe on our Substack and consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology. Laura’s paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06839-2Laura’s personal website:https://lauragwilliams.github.io/Laura’s lab website:https://gwilliams.sites.stanford.edu/ Anjie’s: website: anjiecao.github.ioAnjie’s Twitter @anjie_cao Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com 

Psychologist Paul van Lange discusses trust, cooperation, and climate change barriers. Topics include selfish perceptions, kindness, stranger danger, and changing worldviews. Emphasizes the importance of trust in social interactions and the impact of research on shaping behavior.

How personal interests impact brain development, especially in children with and without autism. The use of fMRI to study brain responses to language based on interests. Exploring the dynamics and functionality of interest, and the connection between self-referential processing and personal interests in MRI studies.

Anjie chats with Dr. Guilherme Lichand. Guilherme is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, and a co-Director at the Stanford Lemann Center. His research interest explores the sources of education inequities in the global south, and in interventions with the potential to overturn them. In this episode, Guilherme talks about his recent paper titled “The Lasting Impacts of Remote Learning in the Absence of Remedial Policies: Evidence from Brazil”. He shares his insights on how remote learning could have negative, long-term impacts on the learning outcomes, especially in places without high quality access to the facilities required by remote learning. He also shares his thoughts on whether the same patterns could generalize to remote work – that is, does work from home have negative impacts on our productivity.  If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe on our Substack and consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology. Guilherme’s paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4209299Guilherme’s personal website:https://lichand.info/ Anjie’s: website: anjiecao.github.ioAnjie’s Twitter @anjie_cao Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Michele Gelfand discusses tight and loose cultures, cultural norms impacting Covid fears and populist leaders, and her interdisciplinary work. She shares insights on passion, setbacks, and even dressing up as a pickle.