Cognitive Psychology 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

This audio edition of Nature’s feature examines concerns that widespread reliance on large language models could weaken critical thinking. It draws on research in cognition and education to consider how people can preserve and practise reasoning skills while using AI tools. The feature distinguishes the concern about cognitive offloading from evidence and practical approaches developed by researchers studying critical thought.

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

Psychologist Martin Seligman continues his discussion of learned helplessness by examining how people interpret discouraging thoughts and develop a sense of agency. The conversation explores ways of recognizing possibilities and building confidence in the capacity to influence future events. This is the second part of the interview, following the episode published on 21 September 2026.

Hosted by Shankar Vedantam

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

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

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.

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.

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

Marc Berman discusses evidence on how exposure to natural environments affects cognition, mood and wellbeing. The conversation contrasts time spent in natural settings with indoor, screen-based and urban environments, and examines the emerging field of environmental neuroscience. It considers how nature may support cognitive performance as well as psychological, physical and social wellbeing.

Hosted by Sean Carroll

Cory Shain discusses efforts to map language processing in individual brains with greater precision. Combining measurements from different recording methods, the research aims to explain how people understand and produce language and to inform future technologies for restoring communication.

Hosted by Nicholas Weiler

James Harrison presents his proposed account of hypnosis as mental foraging, relating changes in attention and internal state to memory and prediction. The conversation explores interoception, engagement with the external world and memory reconsolidation as possible ways to explain hypnotic experience.

Hosted by Paul Middlebrooks

Tom Griffiths discusses mathematical accounts of cognition through logic, neural networks and probability. The conversation draws on his book The Laws of Thought to examine how these approaches complement one another, the ideas and people behind them, and prospects for a unified theory of mind.

Matthieu de Wit, Luis Favela and Vicente Raja examine how neuroscience can use ecological psychology without losing its theoretical commitments. Topics include perception and action, organism–environment relations, affordances, dynamics and the challenges of explaining naturalistic neural data within a field dominated by computational and mechanistic approaches.

Jaan Aru examines biological mechanisms that may matter for consciousness, including dendritic integration and interactions between cortex and thalamus. The discussion connects these mechanisms to cognition and prospects for artificial consciousness, then explores insight and creativity across ordinary problem-solving and altered experiences.