Cognitations
The Cognitations podcast explores how the fascinating quirks of the mind and the world can be understood through the lens of cognitive science. Recorded at several universities like the University of Cambridge, École normale supérieure (ENS - Paris) & Université Grenoble Alpes, the podcast provides insights from leading scientists in the field. For the academic year 2025-2026, this podcast is financially supported by the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association (EHBEA).
Episodes
EP #22 | Religion as Make-Believe | Neil Van Leeuwen
Religion is a puzzling phenomenon. On the one hand, it has been a major historical motor, shaping civilizations and guiding billions of lives. On the other hand, the core of religion centers around beings and realms that we simply cannot see, touch, or measure. One might then wonder, how can religious beliefs be both more important to us than ordinary beliefs, and more removed from what we can kno
EP #21 | Human Innovation in the AI Age | Bret Beheim
There is a specific anxiety that grips almost all of us in the age of generative AI. Whether you are an artist, a coder, or a writer, you are asking yourself: As these AI agents get smarter, are we entering a Golden Age of hyper-creativity? Or are we entering an age of homogenized culture where we all just recycle the same AI-generated ideas?Today’s guest, Bret Beheim, suggests that a surprising p
EP # 20 | Are Attractiveness Preferences Universal? | Lynda Boothroyd
Our appearance is very important to us. This is evident when we look at advertisements, online trends such as what the youth call “looksmaxxing”, or simply reflect on the amount of time we spend looking at a mirror in the morning. For decades, theories in evolutionary psychology state that humans are attracted to specific physical features: think of symmetrical faces. The story goes, that humans e
EP #19 | The Social Lives of Our Ancestors | Manvir Singh
For ages, we've pictured our ancestors as living in small, equal societies, sharing everything around campfires without bosses. Think of popular ideas like the "noble savage" or "primitive communism." But what if that picture is wrong? New research in this century challenges these old ideas, suggesting our deep past was far more diverse than we ever imagined. So, what was s
EP #18 | Relevance & Communication | Dan Sperber
Conversations shape nearly every aspect of our lives. We joke, argue, persuade, gossip, and comfort—all through spoken and unspoken signals we barely even notice. Yet behind every casual chat, awkward silence, or global debate is an invisible force that guides our words and meanings, silently helping us figure out exactly what to say next. How do we instinctively know what matters in a conversatio
EP #17 | The Anthropology of Leisure Time | Mark Dyble
We often talk about the modern challenge of work-life balance. However, long before the existence of offices, commutes, and calendars, our ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers. Did they actually enjoy more leisure time than we do? And did the shift to farming mark the beginning of longer workdays and less free time? Today’s guest is the person to answer these questions, or at least some of them…Mar
EP #16 | What do Auditory Illusions Reveal about the Brain? | Daniel Pressnitzer
We rarely stop to think about how we make sense of the sounds around us — how we find voices in a noisy room, or why two people can hear completely different things in the same audio clip. Today’s guest explores the hidden mechanisms behind these experiences: how the brain turns raw sound into meaning, how we learn the regularities of the soundscape around us, and why people sometimes hear the wor
EP #15 | Social Media and Mental Health: The Cognitive Turn | Georgia Turner & Lukas Gunschera
In our episode with Amy Orben, we discussed a big problem in the research on how social media potentially affects mental health. That is, a lot of studies ask really vague, broad questions. For instance, asking 'What is social media doing to our mental health?' is like asking 'How does food affect young people’s health?' To really answer the latter question, we need to get more spe
EP #14 | How can Social Media Affect Mental Health? | Amy Orben
Humans inhabit a social world. With the march of history and the discovery of novel technologies, our ability to socialise has been in a state of constant flux to varying degrees. However, modes of human interaction have undergone a massive shift in the 21st century with the emergence of smartphones and social media platforms. According to a Pew report, almost half of US teens say that they are o
EP #13 | Knowledge, Communication & Curiosity | Jennifer Nagel
Humans are curious creatures who seek out knowledge about every aspect of the world. We also value knowledge to a great degree. Having a good education is very well-perceived and is a priority of many parents. We sometimes take pride in possessing knowledge, and tend to feel embarrassed when our ignorance gets put on display. More fundamentally, many of our social interactions require tracking wha
EP #12 | Understanding Animal Minds | Jacob Beck
The relationship we sustain with non-human animals is rich and complex. We take care of them, we exploit them, we eat them, and we tell stories about them. The psychological dimensions of this multifaceted relationship are usually taken for granted, but it’s puzzling when you think about it. We don’t bat an eye upon hearing of seductive snakes, gentle, honey loving bears or mystery solving, crimin
BONUS EP | Meet The Hosts & Season 2 Announcements
In this update episode, Tanay and Jay reflect on the journey so far and some special guests crash the show...
EP #11 | Human Behavioral Ecology: Putting Depression & Poverty In Context | Daniel Nettle
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 num
EP #10 | Insights into Sight: Visual Perception, Saccades, Eye-Tracking | Thérèse Collins
Like many of our cognitive abilities, it is easy to take vision for granted. On a daily basis, vision seems rather simple: various objects, people, landscapes present themselves before us; and, if our eyes are open and function well, we are bestowed with a visual experience of these things. We then act on this experience in all the ways the world affords. In reality, things are much more complex
EP #9 | The History And Foundations Of Cognitive Science | Pierre Jacob
After eight episodes where we discussed intricacies of different areas of cognitive science — reasoning, the evolution of cultures, our relationship to our bodies, public policy, how children learn language, schizophrenia, the relationship between economics and neuroscience – one can wonder, what even is cognitive science?. How can a field of scientific investigation cover such a wide array of div
EP #8 | A Child's First Words: Psycholinguistics, Development & Linguistic Communities | Alejandrina Cristia & Camila Scaff
Language is oftentimes viewed as a paradigmatically human capacity. Indeed, we have observed no other creature exhibit linguistic abilities with the same complexity and freedom as our own. Conversely, humans are often viewed as vitally linguistic. Our diverse societies and communities seem to be knit together by the thread of spoken, signed and written words. We tell stories, pass down documents,
EP #7 | Social Cognition & Social Motivation: Autism, Climate Change & Public Policy | Coralie Chevalier
Most actions humans take are social in nature. If they are not directly geared towards affecting others' behaviors and thoughts, they are at least likely to have some impact on their lives. One can wonder if there is something special in one’s mind that determines the behaviors that are oriented towards others. After all, we do colloquially talk of social skills or social intelligence. So, wha
EP #6 | The Architecture of the Mind: Cognitive Neuroscience, Modules and Methods | Nancy Kanwisher
Our daily experiences (e.g. thinking, acting, talking to people etc.) give us the idea that we/our mind is a singular entity i.e. a unified inner space or soul that perceives and acts on the complex world around us. On the other hand, we tend to speak in ways that point to a relative segmentation of the mind – one often hears that some individuals are particularly talented at solving mathematical
EP #5 | Predictive Processing and Mental Health | Sam Wilkinson
What is normal? What is a disorder? Often, when we interact with people who behave in ways we cannot understand, the question of defining ‘normal’ and sane behaviour becomes apparent. Importantly, when we ourselves exhibit thoughts and behaviours which are viewed as deviant from the commonly accepted definition of normality, we might feel helpless, judged, and inadequate. Historically, behaviou
EP #4 | Neuroeconomics & Learning in Humans, Rats and Robots | Stefano Palminteri
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
EP #3 | Minding the Body | Frédérique de Vignemont
Our relationship with our body is extremely complex. We have a wide range of different kinds of sensations: that is, the senses, pains, pleasures, the feeling of heat, of cold and so on. We also do things with our body, we engage in athletic activities, we harm one another, we pleasure one another, we jump for joy, we frown in disbelief, we hunch over in despair… How can we disentangle this giant
EP #2 | Cognitive Approaches To Studying Culture | Olivier Morin
Culture is everywhere: it includes art, the dissemination of theories and of social norms, customs, the food we cook and eat, and so on. Culture also seems to be what distinguishes different communities, families, or entire countries and continents. Is it possible to explain such heterogeneous and complex phenomena? Can we identify the cognitive, environmental or social factors that underlie the s
EP #1 | The Evolutionary Function Of Reasoning and Epistemic Vigilance | Hugo Mercier
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
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