Insights in Mind Sciences
Bart: What is the mind? Is it just a system of impulses, or... is it something tangible?
Homer: Relax. What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind!
The Simpsons shorts (1987)
Insights in Mind Sciences (INMINDS) features conversations with leading scientists from diverse backgrounds who are advancing our understanding of the mind. With an open-minded yet critical attitude, the project takes a broad perspective to highlight the richness and beauty of this subject beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries, while providing a platform for researchers to bring their work closer to the public. INMINDS interviews are published in the popular science journal Ciencia Cognitiva, in both English and Spanish. If you like the project and would like to help it grow, you can support it via Ko-fi. For feedback, proposals, or inquiries, feel free to reach out using this contact form. Follow on X and Bluesky to keep up to date with new interviews, and check out the ones available so far below!
Cognitive biases in humans and machines
Helena Matute
Helena Matute is Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Deusto. Recently appointed Full Member of the Spanish Academy of Psychology, her research has significantly advanced our understanding of cognitive processes such as learning and memory, particularly with regard to their biases. In this interview, I talk to Dr. Matute about cognitive biases: their origin, nature and implications. We also discuss the presence of biases in artificial intelligence, and how it could perpetuate and amplify human errors. The interview concludes with Dr. Matute's reflections on the need for regulatory frameworks to ensure the ethical and safe development of this technology.
Versión en castellano aquí.
Emiliano Bruner
Emiliano Bruner holds a PhD in Animal Biology from La Sapienza Università di Roma. Since 2007, he has been working at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) at Burgos. There, he conducts research on Hominid Paleoneurobiology, a discipline in which anthropology and neuroscience converge. He is also a research associate at the Centro de Investigación en Enfermedades Neurológicas (CIEN), at Madrid. In this interview, I talk with Dr. Bruner about evolution, brain and mind, cognitive superpowers (and their side effects), and the critical role that the body and environment play when we try to understand the keys to what makes us human.
Versión en castellano aquí.
Wondering about mindfulness, mind-wandering, and consciousness
Jonathan Schooler
Jonathan Schooler is Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California Santa Barbara. Author of more than 200 scientific articles, his research covers a wide range of disciplines including psychology, philosophy, and meta-science. In this interview, I talk with Dr. Schooler about some currently highly active research areas that he and his team are contributing to move forward, from mindfulness and how to apply it in the classroom, to mind-wandering and its multiple facets, to consciousness and the development of an emergent theory to explain it. The interview closes with Dr. Schooler offering advice to starting researchers aiming to launch their scientific career.
Versión en castellano aquí.