Under the Cortex

psychologicalscience

The podcast of the Association for Psychological Science. What does science tell us about the way we think, behave, and learn about the world around us?

Under the Cortex is proudly sponsored by Macmillan Learning Psychology, where captivating content meets genuine engagement. Our authors, who are seasoned educators, understand today’s teaching challenges. We aim to craft and present both information and interactive tools that truly connect with students. Whether in-person or online, we support instructors and inspire students. Macmillan Learning Psychology: Engaging Every Student, Supporting Every Instructor, Setting New Standards for Teaching and Learning.

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100 episodes
Updated Aug 7, 2025

Episodes100

Newest first

Sep 1, 2022 · 17 min
Love Lets Us Learn: Psychological Science Makes the Case for Policies That Help Children
Adverse early experiences, quite literally, can kill. In her latest presidential column for the APS Observer, APS President Alison Gopnik, who studies learning and development at the University of California, Berkeley, writes about the growing moral and scientific case for early childhood policies that can mitigate or prevent the effects of experiences such as poverty, physical or emotional neglect and abuse, and mental illness, addiction, and violence in the home. She reads her column in this episode.
Aug 25, 2022 · 16 min
Underweight and Overexposed: How Women’s Perceptions of Thinness Are Distorted
How people judge others’ bodies might be influenced by what they are used to seeing in magazines, TV, or social media. Recent research suggests that women’s judgments about other women’s bodies can be biased by an overrepresentation of thinness. In a recent study published in Psychological Science, young women were more likely to judge bodies they had previously considered “normal” as overweight when they were repeatedly exposed to samples of computer-generated female bodies that became increasingly thin as a group. in which the percentage of thin bodies increased gradually. The lead author, Sean Devine, a graduate student in cognitive psychology at McGill University, explains these findings and elaborates on their implications for policy. To read the transcript, see here.
Aug 18, 2022 · 22 min
The August Collection: Attitude Changes, Cognition in Lemurs, and Much More
How have our biases and attitudes changed in the last decade? Are there sex or gender differences in verbal skills? And do the impressions of personality we form from someone’s face depend on our culture? New research in APS journals explored these questions and much more, including ADHD, and cognitive control in lemurs. In this episode of Under the Cortex, cognitive psychologists Ludmila Nunes and Andy DeSoto discuss five of APS’s most interesting new articles. APS members get advance notice of all new research through our This Week in Psychological Science newsletter and may access the complete archive of APS journal articles. Learn more at psychologicalscience.org.
Aug 8, 2022 · 20 min
A Paradox in the Field: Mental-Health Disorders Among Psychologists
It’s been estimated that at least one third of the population will experience mental disorders and difficulties in their lifetimes, from anxiety to depression. Those affected can be helped by people working in applied fields of psychological science, such as clinical psychology, counseling, or school psychology. But what do we know about the prevalence of mental-health difficulties among psychological scientists themselves—that is, among the same professionals who seek to understand and alleviate suffering in others due to mental disorders? To speak about mental health among psychologists and paths for future research, APS member Sarah Victor, a clinical psychologist and professor at the Texas Tech University, joined APS’s Ludmila Nunes.
Jul 20, 2022 · 23 min
The July Collection: Five Research Briefs
What gives away a deceitful 911 caller who might have committed a crime? From a cross-cultural spin on the classic “marshmallow experiment” to deceitful 911 homicide calls to what true smiles do, new research in APS journals explores a broad range of topics, including visual memory and success. In this episode of Under the Cortex, APS’s Ludmila Nunes and Andy DeSoto—both of whom are psychological scientists themselves—discuss five of our most interesting new research papers. APS members get advance notice of all new research through our This Week in Psychological Science newsletter and may access the complete archive of APS journal articles. Learn more at psychologicalscience.org.
Jun 30, 2022 · 17 min
The New Riddle of the Sphinx: Life History and Psychological Science
Life history—the transformations that occur throughout the lifespan—shapes the human mind. This idea cuts across all the subdisciplines of psychology and underlies the answers to the two main questions that drive psychological scientists: What is universal about human minds and what is special and particular about specific minds? In her inaugural presidential column for the APS Observer, APS President Alison Gopnik, who studies learning and development at the University of California, Berkeley, writes about life history and psychological science. In this episode, she reads her column, which you can find here.
Jun 23, 2022 · 16 min
I Don’t Care If It’s Fake News, I Believe It
While the past several decades can rightly be called the “information age,” the rise of social media platforms makes is seem like the past few years could be considered the misinformation age. The viral nature of alternative facts, rumors, and planned disinformation campaigns has taken its toll on global politics, the economy, and healthcare. If only we could be told when we were reading “misinformation” that might just solve our problems! Or perhaps not. Does knowing that a news story is false really inoculate us against its misinformation? Taking a new look at misinformation is "Max” Bai, a post-doctoral scholar in the Polarization and Social Change Lab as part of the Stanford Impact Labs. who presented new research at the 2022 APS Annual Convention earlier this year.
Jun 16, 2022 · 12 min
2022 Spence Award Mini Episode: Brian Anderson and Habit-Reinforcing Behavior
The winners of the 2022 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions represent some of the brightest and most innovative young psychological scientists in the world. In a series of mini-episodes, Under the Cortex talks with each winner about their research and goals. Today we hear from Brian Anderson (Texas A&M University) about his research on what captures human attention and how that influences behavior. Learn more about our sponsor by visiting https://macmillanlearning.com/psychsessions.
Jun 8, 2022 · 7 min
2022 Spence Award Mini Episode: Patricia Lockwood and the Foundations of Social Learning
The winners of the 2022 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions represent some of the brightest and most innovative young psychological scientists in the world. In a series of mini-episodes, Under the Cortex talks with each winner about their research and goals. Today we hear from Patricia Lockwood (University of Birmingham), who is researching the foundations of social learning and decision-making throughout life. Learn more about our sponsor by visiting https://macmillanlearning.com/psychsessions.
May 3, 2022 · 19 min
Delusion and the Uses of Not Being Rational
Being rational is an often-admired quality. After all, a rational mind allows us to calmly and carefully evaluate situations based on the facts rather than letting emotions cloud our thinking. There are times, however, when irrational thought has its advantages. Shedding some light on the human propensity for delusion thinking is psychologist, writer, and APS Fellow and Charter Member Stuart Vyse, who has published a new book “The Uses of Delusion: Why It’s Not Always Rational to Be Rational.” Learn more about our sponsor by visiting https://macmillanlearning.com/psychsessions.
Apr 27, 2022 · 7 min
2022 Spence Award Mini Episode: Neil Lewis Jr. on the Unequal Nature of Society
The winners of the 2022 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions represent some of the brightest and most innovative young psychological scientists in the world. In a series of mini-episodes, Under the Cortex talks with each winner about their research and goals. Today, Neil Lewis Jr. (Cornell University) talks about how the unequal nature of the society that we live in affects the way we think.
Apr 14, 2022 · 8 min
2022 Spence Award Mini Episode: Human to Nonhuman Interactions with Kai Chi (Sam) Yam
The winners of the 2022 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions represent some of the brightest and most innovative young psychological scientists in the world. In a series of mini-episodes, Under the Cortex talks with each winner about their research and goals. Today, Kai Chi (Sam) Yam (National university of Singapore) tells us about his research on human-nonhuman communication. Learn more about our sponsor by visiting https://macmillanlearning.com/psychsessions.
Mar 30, 2022 · 15 min
Traffic Stops and Race: Police Conduct May Bend to Local Biases
New research covering tens of millions of U.S. traffic stops found that Black drivers were more likely than White drivers to be stopped by police in regions with a more racially biased White population. Pierce Ekstrom, a researcher at the University of Nebraska and lead author on one of two concurrent papers in the journal Psychological Science talks about how these studies shed new light on how countywide attitudes toward race correlate with local policing. Read the news release and watch the video segment here.
Mar 29, 2022 · 9 min
2022 Spence Award Mini Episode: Jason Okonofua and the Power of Empathy
The winners of the 2022 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions represent some of the brightest and most innovative young psychological scientists in the world. In a series of mini-episodes, Under the Cortex talks with each winner about their research and goals. Today, Jason Okonofua (University of California, Berkeley) tells us about his research on empathy and social-psychological processes that contribute to inequality.
Mar 22, 2022 · 6 min
2022 Spence Award Mini Episode: Investigating Complex Brain Processes
The winners of the 2022 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award represent some of the brightest and most innovative young psychological scientists in the world. In a series of mini-episodes, Under the Cortex talks with each winner about their research and goals. Today Oriel FeldmanHall (Brown University) tells us about her research to disentangle the cognitive and neural processes behind the complex choices that form the basis of human social behavior.
Mar 18, 2022 · 7 min
2022 Spence Award Mini Episode: How People Manage Their Emotions
The winners of the 2022 APS Spence Award represent some of the brightest and most innovative young psychological scientists in the world. In a series of mini-episodes, Under the Cortex talks with each winner about their research and goals. Today we hear from Brett Ford (University of Toronto) who is examining the basic science and health implications of how individuals think about and manage their emotions.
Mar 15, 2022 · 8 min
Mini Episode: How We Internalize Disorders
The winners of the 2022 APS Spence Award represent some of the brightest and most innovative young psychological scientists in the world. In a series of mini-episodes, Under the Cortex talks with each winner about their research and goals. Today we hear from Antonia Kaczkurkin (Vanderbilt University) who is researching the neurobiological mechanisms of how we internalize disorders.
Mar 9, 2022 · 13 min
Constellations Across Cultures: How Our Visual Systems Pick Out Patterns in the Night Sky
There are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, though only about 5,000 are visible to the naked eye. Under ideal conditions and far from city lights, you can see about half of them on any given night. Cultures the world over see similar shapes in the night sky--the Big Dipper, Orion, and the Pleiades are just a few. New research, as discussed by Charles Kemp and published in the journal Psychological Science, reveals that our visual processing system may explain the striking commonality of constellations across cultures. Read the transcript here. Image credit: Milky Way from the Atacama Desert by Derek Demeter
Feb 23, 2022 · 18 min
Freedom vs Security: Can We Find the Right Balance?
During the pandemic and when other natural disasters strike, governments may curtail certain liberties in an effort to save lives. These compromises also happen in everyday life, from seatbelt laws to food-safety regulations. A paper published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, however, suggests that restricting freedoms may have other unintended negative consequences for behavior and health. One of the authors, Nathan Cheek with Princeton University, explains how there may be a balance that can be achieved and how psychological science could help policymakers promote public health, safety, and well-being in times of crisis. To read the transcript, see here.
Feb 2, 2022 · 16 min
Debunking Four Common Myths of Psychological Science
You hear them so often they must be true! Or are they? Popular myths about the human brain include old chestnuts like people only use 10% of their brains, too much sugar sends kids into hyperdrive, and there are left-brain and right-brain personalities. How did these beliefs get started and why are they so widespread? Charles Blue and Ludmila Nunes take a skeptical deep dive to explore some the most common myths about psychological science and the brain. These are just some of the facts and debunking you'll find on the Association for Psychological Science's Myths and Misinformation Research Topic page.