Cognitive Engineering

As the UK continues its withdrawal from Afghanistan and the covid-19 pandemic lingers on, this week we revisit a podcast from March about the effectiveness of governments. ------------ The Covid pandemic has seen a sharp rise in government spending, and large scale testing and vaccination programmes. Some of these have been successful, while others less so. We look at whether, on balance, governme...

Identifying a friend or family member from a baby photo seems like a trivial task. Conversely, showing someone a photo of a child and asking them to determine the corresponding adult can be immensely difficult. Why does matching the faces of friends and family to photos create the illusion that it is a simple and straightforward task? In this episode, we look at hindsight bias. Why do our brains p...

When bad luck befalls us, we often say, “wrong place, wrong time.” Rather than accepting that our daily choices continually expose us to new and ever-changing risks, we tend to view life events in terms of good and bad luck. But to what extent are we in control of our own fortunes and can we find solace in the aphorism, “you make your own luck”? In this week’s podcast, we discuss the virtues of lu...

What makes an idiot? Sometimes those who are meant to be the best and brightest among us say the most idiotic things. This suggests intelligence and idiocy are not mutually exclusive characteristics. Can we prevent our own stupidity from becoming manifest or are we all just idiots in waiting? In this podcast, we look at the existence of intelligence and idiocy. We unpick recent examples of utter i...

Traditionally newspapers are published daily or weekly, but what if they were only published every ten years or perhaps, even longer? How would you decide what stories to include and which ones should be left on the cutting room floor? Inspired by a chapter in Tim Harford’s new book, “How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers”, our latest podcast examines the n...

Opposites are one of the first things we teach children: big-small, short-long, happy-sad. But how universal is the idea of opposites? What's the opposite of a banana for example? In our latest podcast, we take an in-depth look at the concept of opposites. We attempt to define opposites, exploring whether they are based on categorical or quantifiable features, or some intuitive interpretation of c...

The word 'cheugy' has become a key weapon on the battlefield of intergenerational conflict. We might be its user, its target or utterly oblivious to its meaning. Does our relationship with the word tell us anything interesting and is the modern concept of generations a meaningful one? In this podcast, we look at intergenerational conflict and its causes. We also attempt to determine whether the us...

In the apocryphal story of the Hartlepool monkey, the residents of the town hang a shipwrecked monkey for being a French spy. Why do we search for scapegoats and how can we prevent ourselves from blaming the wrong person? In this podcast we examine the phenomenon of scapegoating and try to understand the human desire to find someone else to blame for our problems. We tackle the concept of blame, l...

Is the internet becoming unusable? Does it have a life beyond the constant barrage of annoying pop-ups, cookies, self-playing video commercials, captchas, paywalls and requests to turn off your ad blocker? In this week's podcast, we discuss all the things we think are wrong with the World Wide Web and consider what should be done to rescue the internet, looking at ideas to make it a more informati...

Is administering a Covid-19 test on yourself difficult, or are the instructions just confusing? How should we explain complexity and is there a limit to how much we can simplify things? In our latest podcast, we discuss different ways of simplifying information, how to judge the right level of detail for a given context, and whether reductionism is always a useful concept. We look at how simplific...

Spreadsheets, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations: do the ways people format these file types tell us something about the way they think, analyse or organise information? Or do they tell us more about ourselves, when we get frustrated by others' formatting or lack thereof? In this week's podcast, we delve into the use of common applications and discuss the importance of formatting and structu...

Are you a fan of League of Legends or a Fortnite feen? Or do you prefer to share and create content on social media? Either way, how much have you thought about your own online behaviour or the behaviour of others? In this week's podcast, we explore online cultures and environments. Specifically, we take an in-depth look at the world of online gaming to see what it can tell us about the evolution...

The aborted attempt, by the world’s richest football clubs, to form a European Super League appears to be another salutary lesson in the self-defeating nature of greed. But, does greed always lead to the death of the goose that laid the golden eggs? We start this podcast by examining the decision-making of the various football clubs involved in trying to establish the European Super League, asking...

How ready are you for whatever the world might throw at you? Using the closure of the Suez Canal as a case study, this week's podcast explores the concepts of fragility and resilience. We discuss whether we can really prepare for unexpected events or should just rely on our adaptability. A few things we mentioned in this podcast: - The cost of the Suez Canal blockage https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/bus...

Using the government’s 'Test and Trace' programme as a case study, this week’s podcast discusses decision-making and analysis in environments where decisions need to be made quickly. We debate whether we should shoot from the hip or take our time when it comes to decision-making, examining the advantages and disadvantages of both ways of operating. We explore different approaches to decision-makin...

As the Covid-19 vaccine rollout continues, there is an ongoing discussion in some parts of the world about the relative risks associated with various vaccines. In this podcast, we delve into the principle of 'first, do no harm' - primum non nocere. We discuss this principle, its limitations and how we might determine if the cure is, in fact, worse than the disease. We also examine some of the cons...

Are you allowed to choose the colour of your house, the height of your grass, or more importantly can you have a garden gnome? In this podcast, we delve into the world of town planning. We discuss the evolution of urban planning, its pros and cons, and whether new cities have it right or if there are still lessons that can be learned from old towns. We also look at how town planning can affect peo...

Have you ever tried to teach someone to whistle? Highly frustrating for both instructor and student. This week we examine what makes a skill difficult to teach. This podcast looks into how skills are taught and what factors create barriers to this process. We try to classify different types of skills, as well as different types of teachers and learners. We also discuss what we have personally foun...

We recently reached our five year anniversary of producing these podcasts, and (in true meta fashion) thought we would celebrate by analysing why we recognise such occasions. At the point of recording this podcast, there have been 241 episodes of the Cognitive Engineering podcast and nearly 100,000 listens. For some reason, though, we find it much more significant that this achievement has taken u...

Ten years on from the Arab Spring uprisings, we look at whether revolutions constitute an effective way of improving a country’s governance, with Dr Alia Brahimi, an expert in Middle Eastern politics. In this podcast we look at the precursors and aftermath of the Arab Spring, examining several of the affected countries - then and now - to see whether their lots have been improved. We also examine...

Which is more grating, constant punning or permanent snarkiness? We examine the hierarchy of humour in order to determine what is, indeed, no laughing matter. In this podcast, we consider whether humour value can be objectively measured, and if so, whether it is a separate concept to that of wit. We also look at why we bother to attempt humour in the first place. Finally, we engage in a slightly a...

What is more virtuous, delivering a pizza or administering a Covid test? As we begin to end lockdown, we discuss who was most helpful during this difficult period. In this podcast, we examine how data can be used to assess the societal value of different jobs. We look at the Covid risk exposure of different roles, consider whether salary is a good indicator of value, and explore where duty ends an...

What3words provides its users with an easy way of referring to any geographic location, but nobody knows how the three word reference is generated. Is this the right approach or should all standards be open? This podcast looks at how open and closed standards work, investigates the pros and cons of both and considers their economic consequences. We explore existing examples of open and closed stan...

The Covid pandemic has seen a sharp rise in government spending, and large scale testing and vaccination programmes. Some of these have been successful, while others less so. We look at whether, on balance, governments are an effective mechanism for achieving desirable outcomes. In this podcast, we explore the rationale for having governments in the first place and consider what activities it is a...

Some government ministers seem to constantly court controversy, while others manage to fly smoothly under the incompetence radar. Is this down to luck or judgement, and what is it realistic to expect from our politicians? In this podcast, we examine ministerial accountability using Gavin Williamson as a case study. We consider whether it is realistic to expect a government minister to be infallibl...