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American Scientist Podcast

American Scientist Podcast

Written by: American Scientist Magazine
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 Periodic audiocasts from American Scientist, a publication of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Honor Society.American Scientist Magazine
Episodes
  • Certain and Wrong: Why False Facts Feel True | Wired For This

    Certain and Wrong: Why False Facts Feel True | Wired For This
    Nov 19 2025
    Today, we’re joined by Dr. Cecilie S. Traberg.The transcript for this episode will be available the day following the original airdate.Links/Sources mentioned:Dr. Traberg’s website: https://www.cecilietraberg.com/ Solomon’s Secret, a digital murder mystery game designed to explore the psychology of misinformation and social influence Dr. Traberg’s research:Traberg, C. S., Roozenbeek, J., & van der Linden, S. (2022). Psychological Inoculation against Misinformation: Current Evidence and Future Directions. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 700(1), 136–151. Traberg, C. S., & van der Linden, S. (2022). Birds of a feather are persuaded together: Perceived source credibility mediates the effect of political bias on misinformation susceptibility. Personality and Individual Differences, 185, 111269.Traberg, C. S., Roozenbeek, J., & van der Linden, S. (2024). Gamified inoculation reduces susceptibility to misinformation from political ingroups. Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review.Traberg, C. S., Harjani, T., Roozenbeek, J., & van der Linden, S. (2024). The persuasive effects of social cues and source effects on misinformation susceptibility. Scientific Reports, 14(1). Cecilie Traberg, Morten, T., & van. (2024). Counteracting socially endorsed misinformation through an emotion-fallacy inoculation. Advances In/Psychology, 2. Other relevant studies: Marks, J., Copland, E., Loh, E., Sunstein, C. R., & Tali Sharot. (2018). Epistemic spillovers: Learning others’ political views reduces the ability to assess and use their expertise in nonpolitical domains. Cognition, 188, 74–84. Hassoun, A., Beacock, I., Consolvo, S., Goldberg, B., Kelley, P. G., & Russell, D. M. (2023). Practicing information sensibility: How Gen Z engages with online information. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-17).‌Vidgen, B., Taylor, H., Pantazi, M., Anastasiou, Z., Inkster, B., & Margetts, H. (2021). Understanding vulnerability to online misinformation. Gawronski, B., Ng, N. L., & Luke, D. M. (2023). Truth sensitivity and partisan bias in responses to misinformation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Garrett, R. K., & Bond, R. M. (2021). Conservatives’ susceptibility to political misperceptions. Science Advances, 7(23). One example of unintentionally spread misinformation: How a simple math error sparked a panic about black plastic kitchen utensils Some examples of (earned) distrust of institutions: 5 times the US government revealed secrets it tried to keep hiddenWhy we know so little about women’s health NAACP Criminal Justice Fact Sheet Wired For This is produced and edited by Nwabata Nnani and hosted by Celia Ford. American Scientist has been in publication since 1913 and is published by the nonprofit Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society. The magazine focuses on producing narrative-driven features by scientists about their own peer-reviewed work. The publication also produces shorter-form staff-written news articles, as well as blogs, multimedia, and social media. See more at www.americanscientist.orgSubscribe to American Scientist: https://subscribe.americanscientist.org/AMS/?f=paid Music by Nat KeefeFollow us on social media: ⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠
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    31 mins
  • Cognitive Confidence | Wired For This

    Cognitive Confidence | Wired For This
    Nov 5 2025

    Today, we’ll hear from Dr. Dan Willingham, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. He’s taught there since 1992, and until about 2000, studied the neural basis of learning and memory. But today, all of his research concerns the application of cognitive psychology to K-16 education.

    He’s the author of several books, including the best-selling Why Don't Students Like School?, and most recently, Outsmart Your Brain. His writing on education has appeared in twenty-three languages. In 2017 he was appointed by President Obama to serve as a Member of the National Board for Education Sciences.


    Transcript


    Links/Sources mentioned:

    • Dr. Willingham’s books:

      • Why Don’t Students Like School?

      • Outsmart Your Brain

    • Some relevant op-eds written by Dr. Willingham:

      • Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About? – New York Times (October 18, 2019)

      • You Still Need Your Brain - New York Times (May 19, 2017)

    • Dr. Willingham’s graduation speech for the University of Virginia’s Class of 2024

    • Dr. Willingham’s TikTok, where he posts short videos about cognitive science and education

    • A collection of Dr. Willingham’s academic articles

    Wired for This is produced and edited by Nwabata Nnani and hosted by Celia Ford.

    American Scientist has been in publication since 1913 and is published by the nonprofit Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society. The magazine focuses on producing narrative-driven features by scientists about their own peer-reviewed work. The publication also produces shorter-form staff-written news articles, as well as blogs, multimedia, and social media. See more at www.americanscientist.org

    Subscribe to American Scientist: https://subscribe.americanscientist.org/AMS/?f=paid


    Music by Nat Keefe


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    31 mins
  • The “For You” Algorithm | Wired for This

    The “For You” Algorithm | Wired for This
    Oct 22 2025
    In this episode, we're talking about how we consume, process, and share information—and how all of this is changing as our relationships with technology evolve. Jason Lodge is the Director of the Learning, Instruction, and Technology Lab and Professor of Educational Psychology in the School of Education at The University of Queensland, in Australia. He explores the cognitive, metacognitive, and emotional aspects of learning, particularly in higher education and digital environments. He’s also an award-winning educator and advisor to the Australian Government on technology in education.Philipp Lorenz-Spreen leads the junior research group “Computational Social Science” within the Center Synergy of Systems at TU Dresden, in Germany. He and his team study the societal impact of digitalization, and how complex online discourse affects democracies worldwide. TranscriptLinks/Sources mentioned:Dr. Jason Lodge’s websiteSome of Dr. Lodge’s relevant studies: Lodge, J. M., Yang, S., Furze, L., & Dawson, P. (2023). It’s not like a calculator, so what is the relationship between learners and generative artificial intelligence?. Learning: Research and Practice, 9(2), 117-124.Lodge, J. M. (2023). Misjudgements of Learning in Digital Environments. Pedagogy and Psychology in Digital Education, 239–247. Arguel, A., Lockyer, L., Kennedy, G., Lodge, J. M., & Pachman, M. (2019). Seeking optimal confusion: a review on epistemic emotion management in interactive digital learning environments. Interactive Learning Environments, 27(2), 200-210.Panadero, E., Broadbent, J., Boud, D., & Lodge, J. M. (2019). Using formative assessment to influence self-and co-regulated learning: the role of evaluative judgement. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 34, 535-557.Scharff, L., Draeger, J., Verpoorten, D., Devlin, M., Dvorakova, L. S., Lodge, J. M., & Smith, S. V. (2017). Exploring metacognition as a support for learning transfer. Teaching and Learning Inquiry, 5(1).Dr. Philipp Lorenz-Spreen’s websiteSome of Dr. Lorenz-Spreen’s relevant studies: Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Oswald, L., Lewandowsky, S., & Hertwig, R. (2022). A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(1), 74–101. Baumann, F., Lorenz-Spreen, P., Sokolov, I. M., & Starnini, M. (2020). Modeling Echo Chambers and Polarization Dynamics in Social Networks. Physical Review Letters, 124(4). Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Bjarke Mørch Mønsted, Philipp Hövel, & Lehmann, S. (2019). Accelerating dynamics of collective attention. Nature Communications, 10(1). Other relevant links: van den Broek, G., Takashima, A., Wiklund-Hörnqvist, C., Karlsson Wirebring, L., Segers, E., Verhoeven, L., & Nyberg, L. (2016). Neurocognitive mechanisms of the “testing effect”: A review. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 5(2), 52–66. Brian Resnick for Vox: Yes, the internet is destroying our collective attention span.Jason Lyon for Quanta Magazine: To Pay Attention, the Brain Uses Filters, Not a SpotlightWired For This is produced and edited by Nwabata Nnani and hosted by Celia Ford. American Scientist has been in publication since 1913 and is published by the nonprofit Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society. The magazine focuses on producing narrative-driven features by scientists about their own peer-reviewed work. The publication also produces shorter-form staff-written news articles, as well as blogs, multimedia, and social media. See more at www.americanscientist.orgSubscribe to American Scientist: https://subscribe.americanscientist.org/AMS/?f=paid Music by Nat KeefeFollow us on social media: ⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn
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    29 mins
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