We often talk about the modern challenge of work-life balance. However, long before the existence of offices, commutes, and calendars, our ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers. Did they actually enjoy more leisure time than we do? And did the shift to farming mark the beginning of longer workdays and less free time? Today’s guest is the person to answer these questions, or at least some of them…

Mark Dyble is an Assistant Professor in evolutionary anthropology at the University of Cambridge. He has broad interests in understanding variation in behaviour and biology across human populations. Previously, he gained his BA in Archaeology and Anthropology from Cambridge (2008-2011) and an MSc in Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology from Oxford (2011-12). Subsequently, he pursued a PhD in Anthropology at University College London (2013-16), supervised by Prof Andrea Migliano and Prof Ruth Mace, conducting empirical fieldwork with Agta foragers in the northern Philippines. After several post-doc stints, he was also a lecturer in Quantitative Anthropology at UCL for four years (2019-2023).

Credits:

Interview: Tanay Katiyar

Editing: Jay Richardson

Communication: Tanay Katiyar

Music: Thelma Samuel and Robin Baradel

Artwork: Ella Bergru

Daniel Pressnitzer. Originally trained in engineering, he went on to complete a Master's degree in acoustics, signal processing, and computer science in Paris. He earned his PhD at Ircam, where he studied auditory perception, focusing on musical consonance and dissonance. He then spent several years in the UK conducting postdoctoral research at the Centre for the Neural Basis of Hearing in Cambridge. In 2000, he returned to France to join the CNRS as a researcher. Now a Director of Research at CNRS, he is also a founding member and the current head of the Audition team at the École normale supérieure. His research bridges acoustics, perception, and cognition, using carefully crafted illusions and experiments to probe the mid-level processes of hearing — the ones that shape how we interpret the world without us even realizing it. His lab has also developed various tools to probe the functioning of the auditory system.

Credits:

Interview: Cindy Zhang & Marius Mercier

Editing: Jay Richardson

Communication: Tanay Katiyar

Music: Thelma Samuel and Robin Baradel

Artwork: Ella Bergru

In our episode with Amy Orben, we discussed a big problem in the research on how social media potentially affects mental health. That is, a lot of studies ask really vague, broad questions. For instance, asking 'What is social media doing to our mental health?' is like asking 'How does food affect young people’s health?' To really answer the latter question, we need to get more specific—are we talking about junk food or vegetables? And what about the kid’s health history, like if they have diabetes? Some researchers think that using well-established theories from cognitive science can solve this problem by helping us ask better, more precise questions about social media. They also think it could lead to new ways of studying it (beyond self-reported screen time) and potentially offer novel policy insights. So, what are these ideas from cognitive science? What new methods can we use? And how could they change things at the policy level? Our guests today are here to help answer those questions—or at least some of them...

Georgia Turner is a third-year PhD student in the Digital Mental Health Group, supervised by Amy Orben at the University of Cambridge. In her PhD, she aims to understand why we feel we lose control of our technology use. To do so, she uses methods from computational neuroscience on real-world datasets such as Twitter and smartphone recordings. As an undergraduate at Cambridge, Georgia studied Philosophy for two years before switching to Natural Sciences. She then completed a masters in neuroscience in London (UCL) and Paris (Sorbonne and ENS).

Lukas Gunschera is a second-year PhD student in the Digital Mental Health Group, supervised by Amy Orben at the University of Cambridge. He is interested in the cognitive mechanisms linking social media use and mental health. In his research, he uses a combination of computational, longitudinal, and experimental approaches to examine the processes driving the effects of social media use. Before starting his PhD, Lukas completed an MSc in Psychological Research at the University of Amsterdam, and a BSc in Psychology at the Radboud University.

Credits:

Interview: Tanay Katiyar

Artwork: Ella Bergru

Editing: Jay Richardson

Music: Thelma Samuel and Robin Baradel

Communication: Tanay Katiyar

Humans inhabit a social world. With the march of history and the discovery of novel technologies, our ability to socialise has been in a state of constant flux to varying degrees. However, modes of human interaction have undergone a massive shift in the 21st century with the emergence of smartphones and social media platforms. According to a Pew report, almost half of US teens say that they are online ‘almost constantly’. This is understandably terrifying for the previous generation, especially parents of young people, witnessing this shift in sociality. Simultaneously, in the current public discourse, claims about the negative impact of these technologies on mental health and cognition are widespread. But what does the relevant science say? What can it say? Should we really be worried? If so, what precisely should these worries be? Today’s guest is here to answer all these questions, or at least some of them.

Amy Orben is a Programme Leader Track Scientist at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (CBU) and a Fellow at St. John's College, University of Cambridge. She leads the Digital Mental Health programme at the MRC CBU. She is a multi-award winning psychologist and a world expert on examining how digitalisation & social media use impact adolescent mental health. Prior to leading the digital mental health programme at Cambridge, she completed an MA in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge before joining the University of Oxford to obtain her DPhil in Experimental Psychology, for which she was awarded the BPS Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research 2019.

Book recommended by Amy

1. Behind Their Screens: Carrie James and Emily Weinstein

Credits:

1. Interview: Tanay Katiyar
2. Artwork: Ella Bergru
3. Editing: Jay Richardson
4. Music: Thelma Samuel and Robin Baradel
5. Communication: Tanay Katiyar and Marius Mercier
   

Humans are curious creatures who seek out knowledge about every aspect of the world. We also value knowledge to a great degree. Having a good education is very well-perceived and is a priority of many parents. We sometimes take pride in possessing knowledge, and tend to feel embarrassed when our ignorance gets put on display. More fundamentally, many of our social interactions require tracking what others know and signaling what we ourselves know. For instance, discussing politics with a foreigner might require extra care, as our knowledge of social and economic issues might be specialized relative to the contexts in which we grew up. If I learn that my interlocutor knows as much as I do about the political landscape of my home country, the interaction will likely become a lot more fluid. There is more common ground between us. What is knowledge such that it can play this role in conversation? What underlies our obsession with it? How do we develop the capacity to attribute knowledge to others and to understand them?

Jennifer Nagel is a professor of philosophy at University of Toronto. Much of her work has been concerned with topics at the intersection of epistemology and the philosophy of mind, such as mind reading, metacognition and communication. She is the author of Knowledge, a Very Short Introduction, at Oxford University Press.

Credits:Interview: Jay RichardsonArtwork: Ella BergruEditing: Jay RichardsonMusic: Thelma Samuel and Robin BaradelCommunication: Tanay Katiyar

The relationship we sustain with non-human animals is rich and complex. We take care of them, we exploit them, we eat them, and we tell stories about them. The psychological dimensions of this multifaceted relationship are usually taken for granted, but it’s puzzling when you think about it. We don’t bat an eye upon hearing of seductive snakes, gentle, honey loving bears or mystery solving, criminal catching dogs. And yet, when pushed, many of us will readily admit that animals don’t have exactly the same psychological traits and tendencies as humans. How can this be? When we personify animals, are we grasping something real or is it all fiction? How can scientists study the minds of animals? What are the consequences of all of this?

Jacob Beck is Research Chair in the Philosophy of Visual Perception in the Department of Philosophy at York University in Toronto. He carried out his doctoral studies at Harvard before a post-doc at Washington University in St Louis and a teaching job at Texas Tech. He has written terrific articles on pre-linguistic forms of representation, and co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds with Kristin Andrews.

Links to Jacob's popular pieces on animal minds:

Can We Really Know What Animals Are Thinking?
The Conversation, September 5, 2019

Credits: Interview: Jay Richardson Artwork: Ella Bergru Editing: Jay Richardson Music: Thelma Samuel and Robin Baradel Communication: Tanay Katiyar

In this update episode, Tanay and Jay reflect on the journey so far and some special guests crash the show...