Show Notes
Does our geographical location shape our thinking? Does water access have an effect on our decision-making habits? Do we choose to live in the moment because of environmental factors? In this episode, Under the Cortex hosts Dr. Hamid Harati, The University of Queensland, and Thomas Talhelm,University of Chicago. Through their international collaboration, the two scholars explore how our ecological environment can shape our decision-making skills. As they compare two cities in Iran, Yazd and Shiraz, they ask how cultures form based on environmental needs and how water scarcity can be a strong influencer of long-term orientation in basic life decisions. The conversation with APS’s Özge G. Fischer-Baum evolves into implications for climate change and the value of water as a monetary object. Harati and Talhelm also published on this topic in APS’s flagship journal, Psychological Science. Their article is titled Cultures in Water-Scarce Environments Are More Long-Term Oriented. The authors encourage scholars from across the globe to reach out to further explore these questions in future collaborations. Also check out Harati and Talhelm’s related feature in the 2023 September/October issue of the APS Observer at https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/how-climate-shapes-us.
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From the earliest months of life, we rely on faces to help us navigate the world. They tell us who’s safe, who’s familiar, and whether they’re paying attention to us. But do our responses to faces develop gradually as our brains mature? Or are we born prewired to lock onto the human face. In this episode of Under the Cortex, cognitive scientists Rebecca Saxe of MIT and Heather Kosakowski of Harvard University join host Scott Sleek to discuss their groundbreaking findings, published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, about the development of the brain’s face-processing network. If you're interested in learning more about this research, visit psychologicalscience.org. Send us your thoughts and questions at [email protected]. Under the Cortex is going on hiatus and won’t be recording new episodes for the foreseeable future. Explore our archive of 150 episodes filled with scientific insights, stories from editors and researchers, and conversations worth revisiting again and again!
Why do we avoid retracing our steps—even when it helps us reach our goals faster? In this episode of Under the Cortex, host Özge Gürcanlı Fischer-Baum speaks with Kristine Cho and Clayton Critcher from the University of California, Berkeley about their latest research on doubling-back aversion: the tendency to resist more efficient paths if they require undoing prior effort.
Why do familiar experiences sometimes feel like they happened longer ago than they actually did? In this episode of Under the Cortex, host Özge Gürcanlı Fischer-Baum speaks with Brynn Sherman from the University of Pennsylvania about her recent study published in Psychological Science, the flagship journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Sherman's research uncovers a surprising illusion: repeated experiences, which are more vividly remembered, are often perceived as having occurred further in the past than they did. Through a series of experiments, Sherman and her colleague Yousif demonstrate that this distortion in time perception is both robust and consistent, shedding light on how our memories can mislead us about the timing of events. Tune in to explore the mechanisms behind this illusion and its implications for our understanding of memory and time. If you're interested in learning more about this research, visit psychologicalscience.org. Send us your thoughts and questions at [email protected].
How does your brain keep track of the people in your life—not just who they are, but where they are in relation to you and to each other? In this episode of Under the Cortex, Özge Gürcanlı Fischer-Baum talks with Robert Chavez from the University of Oregon about his new findings published in Psychological Science, the flagship journal of the Association for Psychological Science. His research shows that our brains rely on two separate systems to encode person-knowledge: one that maps others in the broader world (allocentric), and another that maps them in relation to ourselves (egocentric). Together, these systems help us organize social memory and navigate our relationships with others. Tune in to learn how the brain structures our social world—and why it matters. If you're interested in learning more about this research, visit psychologicalscience.org. Send us your thoughts and questions at [email protected].
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