Cognitations

Contemporary life is replete with problems. A very salient example of such a problem is depression, which according to the World Health Organization, affected 5% of the global population in 2019. That is 280 million people – a very large number indeed. Another such problem is poverty and inequality. According to the World Bank, around 700 million people live in extreme poverty – an even larger number. Why are these problems on the rise? Are there features of contemporary societies that are exacerbating this problem? Moreover, how do these problems, namely rising inequality and depression, interact? How can an evolutionary and/or behavioral ecology perspective add novel insights to rethinking the source of these problems? Can such insights lead to effective social policies and change? Today’s guest is here to answer these questions, or at least some of them…Daniel Nettle is a behavioral scientist at the Institut Jean Nicod. He has trained both as a psychologist and an anthropologist. He has made many important contributions, spanning many topics across diverse disciplines like biology, psychology, anthropology and more. For example, he has worked on psycholinguistics, the demise of languages, the consequences of smoking, depression, anxiety, epistemological aspects of evolutionary psychology, personality, and the list goes on. He is the author of 9 academic books including Personality: What Makes You The Way You Are, 2007, and Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile, in 2005. Credits:Interview: Tanay Katiyar and Jay RichardsonArtwork: Ella BergruEditing: Jay RichardsonMusic: Thelma Samuel and Robin BaradelCommunication: Tanay Katiyar

A defining feature of us humans is that we continuously adapt to our environments in order to thrive. One key component of this process is ‘learning’ the contingencies of our environment. Since the 19th century, this phenomenon has been studied under the moniker of “conditioning”, and is usually associated with Pavlov and his famed dogs. Despite the fact that this seems trivial to many today with regard to dogs and other animals, and that we cannot assume that humans, with their complex mental lives merely act with the prospect of a reward, the basic idea behind these principles has enjoyed increasing success when applied to the study of the mind. This prompts the following questions: what influence does reward and punishment have on our behaviour? How do the decisions we make based on these principles tie into collective action and economic activity? How do they influence the ways in which we think? Today’s guest, Stefano Palminteri, is the person to answer all of these questions, or at least some of them…He is research director (full professor) and heads the Human Reinforcement Learning team at the cognitive and computational neuroscience laboratory situated at the ENS. Alongside his research, he teaches a course on neuroeconomics. Previously, he studied Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and cognitive neuroscience before holding various post-doctoral positions in Paris, Trento and London. He is also a member of the European Laboratory of Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) Society and the Cercle FSER. He has recently won grants to work on the dynamics of decision-making, learning and the effects of memory on these processesCredits:Interview: Tanay Katiyar and Jay RichardsonArtwork: Ella BergruEditing: Rohan ChowdhuryMusic: Thelma Samuel and Robin BaradelCommunication: Tanay Katiyar

Humans reason about many matters: from the most simple of concerns, like the planning of a weekend outing; to the most complex and intellectual topics. Given the ubiquity of reasoning, and the broad range of situations which call for it, we tend to take it for granted. But for these very same reasons, the study of reasoning is quite central to understanding the workings of the human mind. One can wonder how we came to acquire such a capacity, how our minds are so wired to make inferences, the places where reasoning breaks down, and so much more. On this first ever episode of the Cognitations Podcast, Hugo Mercier tells us how we can answer these questions. Hugo Mercier, is a cognitive scientist at the Institut Jean Nicod (CNRS). His work has primarily focused on the function and workings of reasoning. Other research themes that he engages with are collective intelligence, the evaluation of communicated information, trust in science and interest in science. He is the author of two books: The Enigma of Reason (co-authored with Dan Sperber) & Not Born Yesterday in 2020. Credits: Interview: Tanay Katiyar and Jay Richardson Artwork: Ella Bergru Editing: Mathieu Fraticelli Music: Thelma Samuel and Robin Baradel Communication: Guillaume Coudriet