Kaleidoscience: Conversations on Cognitive Science

Do you know someone who has Parkinson’s disease? It is often characterized by trembling hands, but actually has many more aspects. Elisa Percolla is a scientific researcher at the institute of Cognitive Science in Osnabrück. She wrote her master thesis on Parkinson’s disease and studied the brains of patients with EEG. During the interview Elisa describes her way into the field of cognitive scienc...

Julia Hattendorf is studying Cognitive Science in Osnabrück. She found the topic for her bachelor thesis more or less by accident: While searching the internet, she stumbled across neuro-fuzzy systems. In this episode she talks about what that is and what one can do with it. Mentioned/Recommended papers: Zadeh, L. A. (1965). Fuzzy sets. Information and control, 8(3), 338-353. Lee, S. C., & Lee...

Do you remember what you’ve been dreaming last night? At least a tiny bit of it? Even if some people cannot remember, most of us dream several different dreams each night. Often, those dreams are connected to what has happened during our wake life. Some of us might frequently experience rather stressful dreams, which cause us to wake up shaking or ruffled. And for some, those nightmares can...

  For this special episode we have no guest but the hosts become the guests and are interviewed by our producer Alina. We talk about what Cognitive Science is to us and why we are fascinated by it. Recommended resources: GODFREY-SMITH, Peter. Other minds: The octopus and the evolution of intelligent life. London: William Collins, 2016. BARRETT, Lisa Feldman. How emotions are made: The secret...

Adrien Doerig is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Science in Osnabrück. He uses artificial neural networks to study visual processing and is also interested in consciousness research. Mentioned paper: Doerig, A., Sommers, R. P., Seeliger,  K., Richards, B., Ismael, J., Lindsay, G. W., … & Kietzmann, T. C. (2023). The neuroconnectionist research programme. Nature Re...

Have you ever been in a “flow” state? Sleeping, dreaming, being stressed, being in “flow” – Altered states of consciousness are something we all experience every single day and yet there is a lot more research to be done. Linda Ariel Ventura may only be at the beginning of her academic career, but her enthusiasm for Cognitive Science is already infectious. She is a ba...

What does solving mysteries of the world have to do with brains? And how does one come from wanting to be a detective to research neural networks? In this episode, we’re talking to Viktoria Zemliak. She is currently doing her PhD in the neuroinformatics research group at the Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabrück. As in many episodes, we will learn a lot about why a p...

Dr. Annette Hohenberger is a lecturer for Cognitive Neuropsychology and is especially interested in the Cognitive Development of children. Additionally to the research she is doing, she is also a member of the local Scientists for Future group. Among other things, the Scientists for Future are organizing a lecture series which is also available online. Regionalgruppe Osnabrück Mentioned paper: Tur...

Tracy Sánchez Pacheco is researching social facilitation in spatial navigation as a PhD student at the institute of Cognitive Science. Not only Tracy’s research area is super interesting, also her methods are: She is using Virtual Reality to put her participants into an environment of which she and her colleagues can control almost all aspects. Mentioned/recommended papers: Dalton, R. C., Hölscher...

The field of artificial intelligence has changed and grown a lot in the last 20 years. Prof. Kai-Uwe Kühnberger witnessed this change first hand – and was part of it. After studying Mathematics, Philosophy and Linguistics, and doing a PhD in Computational Linguistics, he then worked internationally as a researcher. Since 2009 he is the professor for Artificial Intelligence at the Institute o...

Piper has an interdisciplinary background in Psychology, Neuroscience and Machine Learning and is applying her knowledge in two amazing projects: For one, she is developing a wearable grasping assistant tool for the blind and visually impaired, and she is aiming to understand neural mechanisms to implement them in neuromorphic networks. Credits: Produced by: Sophie Kühne and Alina Ohnesorge Logo b...

Every sentence that we speak can conceal a myriad of meanings. Dr. Asya Achimova is exploring linguistic nuance: While some researchers assume ambiguity to be hindering in communication, Asya Achimova explores how we resolve and intentionally use ambiguous language. She did her PhD in Cognitive Psychology at Rutgers University in New Jersey and is currently the substitute professor for Cognitive M...

Sebastian Musslick studied Psychology and Neuroscience, did his PhD at Princeton and is now an Assistant Professor for Computational Neuroscience at the Institute of Cognitive Science in Osnabrück. Like many of our guests, he is very passionate about his research and is fascinated by the interdisciplinary work between Neuroscientists and Computer Scientists. Recommended paper: Schultz, W., Dayan,...

In many ways, Dr. Dr. Gregor Hörzer incorporates the “CogSci experience” – he studied telematics and by coincidence started visiting philosophy lectures. He ended up doing a PhD in both, studied philosophy of mind and worked as a computational neuroscientist. He is now the dean of studies and study coordinator at the Institute of Cognitive Science in Osnabrück. Recommended books: Goff, P. (2...

Jolinde is a PhD candidate in the Comparative Biocognition group at the IKW Osnabrück. She is comparing bonobo and dolphin behavior, with a special focus on turn-taking in mother-child interactions – this may sound familiar, do you remember our episode with Bas van Boekholt on chimpanzee communication? If not, make sure to listen to it! And even though the researchers try not to disturb the animal...

For our first special episode that we recorded at the Cognitive Science Space Day, we talked to Prof. Dr. Peter König. He is a lecturer for Neurobiopsychology and Elisa and Sophie talked with him about his journey from Physics to Medicine to Neuroscience research. Besides his appreciation for the group of students at Osnabrück University, Prof. König also offers a quick ride through the very basic...

Why do we have to talk about ethics when we’re talking about AI? And can we really trust the output ChatGPT or other AI functions provide us? And what’s the thing with Instagram filters – is there a bias into how they change the look of people? Those questions and many more will find answers in our next episode. We’re talking to Nora Freya Lindemann, a current PhD student....

Climate change and climate protection is a topic much discussed from different aspects. And it’s something that already affects us today and will become even more pressing in future. In this episode, we go brain-to-brain with Charlotte Lange. She loves nature and wants to protect it. For this, she uses a tool that is also often discussed, but mostly in different contexts. She’s doing r...

Have you had a bad dream recently? And have you ever wondered where your dreams come from and what they mean? In this episode we go brain-to-brain with Jona who wrote their bachelor’s thesis about emotional regulation during dreams. Licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 Cognitive Science Student Journal, Osnabrück University References: Cartwright, R. D. (1991). Dreams that work: The relation of dream...

Nearly everyone has heard of ChatGPT and most of us already used it. While some consider it a helpful tool, others raise worried thoughts about the repercussions it might have for education systems. But did you ever think about how ChatGPT actually works? In a university project, Konstantin Strömel and Max Kalcher have developed a tool that uses GPT to create a digital learning assistant. In our f...

Join us in our conversation on well-being. We explore how well-being is measured and what we can do ourselves in order to improve our well-being. Licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 Cognitive Science Student Journal, Osnabrück University Mentioned papers and articles:   24 character strengths: https://www.viacharacter.org/   eudaimonic and subjective well-being: Martela, F., & Sheldon, K. M....

Join us in our conversation on inner speech and consciousness. We explore the functionality of inner speech and raise the question if an AI could have inner speech. Licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 Cognitive Science Student Journal, Osnabrück University Mentioned paper: Mann, Stephen Francis & Gregory, Daniel (forthcoming). Might text-davinci-003 have inner speech? Think. Credits: Produced by: Soph...

Before diving into conversations on Cognitive Science, we talk about what this research field generally covers. We outline the different topics, dive into the historical origin of the field and talk about our reasons to create a podcast on Cognitive Science. And – most boldly – we try to explain, what Cognitive Science is (though finding words for this is rather tricky). Produced by: S...