The Nature & Nurture Podcast

Dr. C. Sue Carter is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia and Distinguished Research Scientist at Indiana University, where she also holds an Emerita position as Rudy Professor of Biology and was formerly Director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. She is a Fellow and past President of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, and is...

Dr. Adam Morris is a cognitive scientist and Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Psychology at Princeton University. In this episode we talk about Adam’s research on the connections between mindfulness, decision-making, and introspection. We talk about the cognitive mechanisms involved involving in weighing pros and cons of your decisions, how various decision-making strategies may be computationally...

Dr. Brynn Sherman is a cognitive neuroscientist and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. In this episode we talk about Brynn’s research on the interaction between statistical learning and memory errors, and how memory is studied using behavioral tasks and neuroimaging. We discuss the distinction between episodic memory and semantic memory, memory encoding and consolidati...

Dr. Michael Levin is a developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University, where he is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor and director of the Allen Discovery Center and Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. In this episode we talk about Mike’s research, which ranges from studying the molecular biology of cancer, to the bioelectrics of limb regeneration, to memory a...

Dr. Daniel Schacter is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University where he runs the Schacter Memory Lab, and author of The Seven Sins of Memory. In this episode we talk about the history of memory research over the last 100+ years, beginning with simple behavioral tasks and up to modern neuroimaging. Dr. Schacter overviews different dimensions of memory scientists have identified, including e...

Dr. Joshua Greene is a psychologist, philosopher, Professor at Harvard University, and author of Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them. In this episode we talk about Josh’s early research on moral psychology, specifically trolleyology. He describes his empirical research on the famous trolley problem thought experiment in philosophy, and how people generally approach these...

Dr. Dorsa Amir is a psychologist, anthropologist, and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. In this episode we talk about child development and decision-making through the interdisciplinary lenses of anthropology, psychology, evolutionary biology, and behavioral economics. We talk about some of Dorsa’s theoretical research on how human environments have changed ac...

Dr. Anita Collins is an award-winning educator, researcher and writer in the field of brain development and music learning. She is the author of The Lullaby Effect: The Science of Singing to Your Child and The Music Advantage: How Learning Music Helps Your Child’s Brain and Wellbeing. In this episode we talk about the neuroscience of music education, and the brain and cognitive benefits of musical...

Dr. Samuel Gershman is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, where he directs the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory. He is also the author of What Makes Us Smart: The Computational Logic of Human Cognition. In this episode we discuss Sam’s book, and the central argument that human brains are computers that must operate based on both limits of information and limits of comp...

Dr. Frank von Hippel is a Professor of Ecotoxicology and Environmental Health Sciences at the University. He is the host of his own successful podcast, The Science History Podcast, and author of The Chemical Age. In this episode we talk about Frank’s own field of ecotoxicology, the study of environmental toxins and their effects on humans and other animals, and Frank’s book The Chemical Age. We di...

Dr. Robert Epstein is a longtime psychology researcher and professor—a distinguished scientist who is passionate about educating the public about advances in mental health and the behavioral sciences. The former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, Dr. Epstein is currently Senior Research Psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology. He is also the founder and Dire...

Dr. Jason Mitchell is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, where he directs the Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. His research uses a combination of neuroimaging and behavioral measures to investigate the cognitive processes that support inferences about the psychological states of other people and introspective awareness of the self. In this episode we introduc...

Dr. Bryce Huebner is the Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University, where he conducts research connecting philosophy of mind, cognitive science, biology, and moral psychology. In this episode we talk broadly about what it means to be conscious, and how cognition and emotion are governed by bodily processes. Bryce and I discuss how philosophy of mind ought t...

Dr. Randolph Nesse is a Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, and the Institute for Social Research at The University of Michigan, and one of the pioneers of the field of evolutionary psychiatry. He is the Founding President of The International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, and author of the book Good Reasons for Bad Feelings. In this episode we...

Dr. Steven Pinker is a Cognitive Scientist and the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year, a recipient of nine honorary doctorates, one of Foreign Policy’s “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” and Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today,”...

Dr. Ilan Dar-Nimrod is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Sydney, and an expert on how people reason about genetic causes of behavior, the psychology of gender and sexuality, and the existential psychology of death. In this episode we talk about psychological essentialism, the belief that people have an innate “essence,” and how over time, as society has become more secular,...

Dr. Imac Zambrana is an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Oslo, and an expert in the study of children’s language development, social cognition, and social learning. She is also the Chief Scientific Officer at Nordic Neurotech, which aims to use virtual reality to help with psychological and medical research. In this episode we discuss Imac’s research on childhood language deve...

Dr. Valerie van Mulukom is an Assistant Professor at Coventry University’s Centre for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations, and a Research Associate at the University of Oxford’s Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion. Her research spans a broad range of topics, roughly unified within the cognitive and evolutionary science of imagination, memory, and belief. In this episode we talk about Valerie’s...

Dr. Anna Lembke is a Professor of Addiction Medicine at Stanford University, Program Director of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, and Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, a diplomate of the American Board of Addiction Medicine, and the bestselling author of the books Drug Dealer, MD – How Do...

Dr. Alan Levinovitz is an Associate Professor of Religion at James Madison University, and author of Natural: How Faith in Nature's Goodness Leads to Harmful Fads, Unjust Laws, and Flawed Science. In this episode we talk about Alan’s book Natural, and attempt to understand why people gravitate towards assuming what is natural is good, what is unnatural is bad, and how people come up with ideas of...

Dr. Frans de Waal is a primatologist and the C. H. Candler Professor in the Psychology Department of Emory University and Director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. He has been elected to the (US) National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. He’s the author of several bestsellers including...

Dr. Kim Meidenbauer is a social, cognitive, and environmental neuroscientist, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Chicago, and incoming Assistant Professor at Washington State University. Her research focuses on how the physical environment influences brain development, and in turn, our cognition, emotion, and social behavior.    In this episode we talk about Kim’s research...

Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar is a psychologist, best-selling author of the books Happier and Being Happy, and co-founder of the Happiness Studies Academy. In this episode we talk about the science of happiness, its roots in positive psychology, and what psychology commonly gets wrong about happiness. We talk about how happiness is neither synonymous with pleasure nor the “just fine” state of not being unhap...

Dr. Sofie Valk is a neuroscientist, Head of the Cognitive Neurogenetics Lab at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, and Research Group Leader at the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Brain and Behavior (INM-7), Research Centre in Jülich, Germany, where she studies the interplay of genetic factors and social behavior on brain structure. In this episode, we talk abo...

Dr. Courtney Hilton is a cognitive scientist and postdoctoral research fellow at The Music Lab at Harvard University. In this episode we talk about Courtney’s background as a musician and transition into cognitive science, and how musical cognition is studied in humans. We discuss evolutionary theories of whether music evolved for socially adaptive purposes or as a byproduct of language, how certa...