Cognition podcasts

Paul Middlebrooks talks with Andrea Hiott, a philosopher at Universität Heidelberg with degrees across philosophy and neuroscience, about her book Holding Paradox: The Navigational Approach to Mind. A theme running through her work is that we need to go beyond dichotomous thinking and learn to hold paradoxes as they are. The navigational approach is her proposal for what should replace the computational metaphor of the mind. In the book she uses the history of research on the hippocampus to illustrate both ideas: the hippocampus has two parallel research histories, one treating it as the seat of memory and the other as a cognitive map for how we move through the world and through our thoughts.

Hosted by Paul Middlebrooks

Sana Qadar speaks with cognitive neuroscientist Reuben Rideaux and English professor Sophie Gee about how using AI may affect thinking, memory and creative work. They examine cognitive offloading, the potential contributions of AI tools, and which parts of intellectual activity benefit from continued human engagement.

Hosted by Sana Qadar

Madeleine Finlay interviews Boston University neuroscientist Steve Ramirez about locating, activating and removing rodent memories, and possible applications in humans.

Hosted by Madeleine Finlay

Sana Qadar explores the cognitive processes involved in reading and the effects of narrative fiction with Genevieve McArthur, Lili Yu and Raymond Mar. The episode considers literacy difficulties, reading research and the relationship between stories, cognition and wellbeing, alongside readers' personal experiences.

Hosted by Sana Qadar

Psychologist Martin Seligman joins Hidden Brain to discuss learned helplessness and why some people act on opportunities while others believe their actions cannot change outcomes. The conversation examines how interpretations of setbacks influence later behaviour and how optimism can help people recover a sense of agency. Seligman is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Hosted by Shankar Vedantam and published by Hidden Brain Media on 21 September 2026, this is the first part of How to Make a Difference. The official episode page provides a public audio player.

Hosted by Shankar Vedantam

Chris Smith presents research on individual differences in fruit flies, colour-linked pupil responses in synaesthesia, and how mating patterns broaden cognitive variation in chickadees. The episode also examines which species succeed in cities and how DNA organisation changes in cancer. The publisher provides a full episode player and individual interview transcripts.

Hosted by Chris Smith

Andrea Gambarotto examines agency and intrinsic purpose in biological cognition, drawing on Hegel and contemporary theoretical biology. The conversation connects these ideas to enactivism and asks how living intelligence differs from artificial systems, including language models.

Hosted by Paul Middlebrooks

Cognitive scientist Nafees Hamid discusses research on the motivations of people approaching or already committed to violent extremism. The conversation examines sacred values, social relationships and how psychological research may help disengage people from extremist ideas. The supporting research includes behavioural and neuroimaging studies of willingness to fight and die for a cause. Hosted by Shankar Vedantam. Hidden Brain Media dates this public episode release to 10 September 2026 and provides audio, research references and a transcript. The publisher notes that transcripts can reflect an earlier episode version.

Hosted by Shankar Vedantam

Psychologist Anthony Klotz discusses how unexpected experiences interrupt familiar routines and change the way people make decisions about their lives. He examines how these moments can clarify personal goals and future choices. In a later conversation, psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis answers listeners’ questions about creative breakthroughs.

Hosted by Shankar Vedantam

Daniel Levenstein discusses spontaneous activity in the hippocampus and cortex, especially during sleep, and its relationship to learning, memory and navigation. He explains how AI models can help investigate these dynamics, alongside questions about model systems, cognitive maps and the relationship between neuroscience experiments and theory.

Hosted by Paul Middlebrooks

Masud Husain explains the neuroscience of motivation, dopamine, effort, and reward, together with research on apathy, dementia, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and cognitive resilience.

Computer scientist and cognitive scientist Melanie Mitchell discusses why artificial intelligence does not think or reason like humans, how developmental and comparative psychology can improve machine-cognition experiments, and six principles for testing AI competence, robustness, and failure modes.

Marco Facchin discusses how neuroscience and philosophy explain cognition, including embodied and enactive approaches, the importance of biological detail, and limits of computational accounts. The conversation also examines predictive processing, representation and the role of AI in understanding brains and minds.

Hosted by Paul Middlebrooks

Ralph Adolphs explains how the brain creates emotions including fear, joy, and awe, and discusses evidence-based approaches to emotion regulation. The episode connects neural mechanisms with attention, decision-making, and bodily state.

Chandra Sripada presents his argument that language models and humans share meaningful features of cognition. Drawing on cognitive science, he and Sean Carroll examine what behavioral similarities can tell us about underlying mechanisms and how to assess the relationship between artificial and human intelligence.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Andrew Huberman and Fei-Fei Li discuss how artificial intelligence works, spatial intelligence, human cognition, creativity, learning, health and human agency.

Ishmail Abdus-Saboor explores why touch can feel painful or pleasurable and how scientists study those experiences. The conversation connects sensory pathways to social behavior and evolution, including work with unusual animal models and the challenge of interpreting subjective experience through experiments.

Hosted by Janna Levin

Andrew Huberman explains how key neuromodulators shape motivation, energy, focus and mood, with science-supported behavioral, nutritional and supplement strategies.

Alison Barth explains how distinct neuron types contribute to cortical function and how learning can be used as an experimental window into the organization and plasticity of cortical circuits.

Nature reporters discuss the chemical signal used by naked mole-rat queens to maintain reproductive hierarchy and how people reason when learning unfamiliar games.