The Monkey Dance

28 | Whose fault is it?

How do we decide whether someone should be held responsible for something?
 
We sit down with cognitive scientist Katarina Kovačević to talk about ascribing responsibility, and how our intuitions about responsibility shape behavior. We chat about the differences between knowing and not knowing what we're doing is wrong, versus the grey area of having had access to the knowledge but avoiding it.
 
We also cover Katarina's work on victim blaming, what all of this means about our relationship with the legal systems we live under, and how to account for situations where a machine (like AI) is involved.
 
Joining us as a co-host is philosopher Pelin Kasar (our guest from Episode 6).
 
Guest: Katarina Kovačević
Co-host: Pelin Kasar

27 | Student protests in Serbia

This episode was recorded at 11:30 on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.
 
Yesterday (March 10), students blocked access to the state-run Serbian public television headquarters, accusing it of biased coverage. As of this recording, hundreds of students continue to block access to the building.
 
There is a major protest scheduled for Saturday, March 15.
 
Since November of 2024, students in universities across Serbia have been organizing mass protests across the country against the corrupt, autocratic government of Aleksandar Vučić. While the media coverage has focused on the protests themselves, the engine of the student-led movement is a unified, multilateral experiment in absolute democracy that has managed to maintain a flat hierarchy and a single set of demands.
 
Serbian philosopher and anthropologist Aleksandra Knežević joins us to talk about her ongoing work with the movement as both a participant and a researcher. She has been allowed by the students to research the movement, and has been conducting interviews and joining the student meetings as an observer.
 
Guest: Aleksandra Knežević
Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade
 
Check out Aleksandra's autoethnography of her experience with the movement: An Autoethnographic Account of the Anti-Corruption Student Protests in Serbia 2024/25
 
Aleksandra also recommends:
 
1. An academic article by Katarina Beširević on the protests: “Nisi nadležan”: How a Student Movement Dictates Political Change in Serbia (2024/2025)
 
2. From The Guardian by Adriana Zaharijević: Serbia’s students are showing the world how to restore democratic hope
 
If the links don't work in your podcast player, you can find links to Aleksandra's paper and the other articles in the show notes: 
https://www.monkeydancepod.com/episodes/episode-27
 

26 | How does the brain understand comic books?

Making sense of a series of graphic representations is not simple, but our brains manage to do it with little effort.
Our conversation with Neil Cohn starts out with a rethinking of language, moving from an understanding built solely on spoken language to the ability to express meaning across a range of modalities. This moves us into Neil's work on how we develop the ability to understand visual narratives and what this means for our understanding of language as a whole.
We chat about emojis, comics, children's books, and a bunch of other fun stuff.
 
Guest: Neil Cohn (personal website)
Co-Host: Xueyi Yao
 
Links to everything on the Monkey Dance website:
https://www.monkeydancepod.com/episodes/episode-26

25 | How does toxicity shape conversations?

And how can complexity science help us understand them?
We sit down with network scientist Gabriela Juncosa to discuss how political discourse unfolds in online spaces and whether toxic interactions shut conversations down or keep them going. We chat about the structure of online discussions, how social media algorithms influence engagement, and whether the way we talk online differs from in-person interactions.
This takes us to the role of network structures in polarization, the ways AI might intervene in online discourse, and whether we can design digital spaces that foster both engagement and constructive dialogue.
Joining us as a cohost is philosopher Phyllis Pearson (our guest from Episode 24).
 
Guest: Gabriela JuncosaCo-host: Phyllis Pearson
 
Show notes on the Monkey Dance website

24 | What does it mean to be open minded?

We use the terms open mindedness and gaslighting a lot, but do we really understand what they mean?
We sit down with Phyllis Pearson to discuss what it means to engage honestly with information and with others. We chat about curiosity and agency, empathy and perspective taking, and the blurry line between being open to the beliefs of others versus maintaining skepticism and asking for justification.
This takes us to what honest dialogue looks like, whether gaslighting is always malicious, and what it means to have epistemic agency and to ascribe that agency to others.
 
Guest: Phyllis Pearson
Co-host: Juliette Vazard (our guest on Episode 20)
 
As always, show notes on the Monkey Dance website.

23 | Why do we show emotion?

What is the function of emotional displays?
We sit down with Thomas Ganzetti and discuss the role emotions serve in social contexts and how we use the displays of others to gather information about our realities. We chat about the evolutionary trajectory of emotional displays, how they help us navigate our environments, and what we learn about ourselves and those around us as we observe each other (whether we intend to or not).
 
Guest: Thomas Ganzetti
Co-Host: Xueyi Yao (to hear more from Xueyi, check out Episode 18!)
 
Show notes on the monkey dance website!
 
Also, we've now been going for a full year! Thank you to everyone who has been listening and reaching out.

22 | How do we experience music?

How does the brain process music and how has the perception of music changed over time? We sit down with cognitive neuroscientist Anja-Xiaoxing Cui to chat about how we relate to music, music's role in social interactions, and how music might be used as a tool for regulating emotions. We cover theories of the emergence of music in human history, the relationship between music and other art forms, and whether reading sheet music is at all similar to hearing it.
My co-host this episode is Arianna Curioni (who was also our guest on Episode 13).
 
Show notes on the monkey dance website!

21 | Resisting narratives that justify inequality

What makes systemic inequality such a hard problem to tackle?
We sit down with cognitive anthropologist Angarika Deb and cognitive psychologist Ákos Szegőfi and chat about their research on different aspects of the problem. We chat about the cognitive mechanisms involved in perpetuating systemic inequality both on the part of those benefiting from such systems and those who are marginalized by them. We also discuss the importance of narratives and access to information when it comes to both upholding and justifying inequality as well as challenging and dismantling it.
 
Show notes on the Monkey Dance website

20 | How do emotions impact cognition?

What are emotions and how do they impact cognition? We sit down with philosopher Juliette Vazard to talk about what we can learn from our emotions, the relationship between emotions and beliefs, and how emotions can shape our behavior. We cover everything from learning and curiosity, to the epistemic value of emotional states, to their impact on how we relate to the world.
Joining me as a co-host is philosopher Maria Fedorova, our guest on Episode 17.
 
As always, you can check out the show notes on the website
 
You an also watch the episode on youtube

19 | Manipulating memory: How event structure impacts recall

Does everybody experience memory in the same way? We sit down with Andreas Arslan to chat about what we spontaneously imagine when we read or actively remember, and how everything from inferring causal relationships to the salience of symbols can impact recall. We also talk about how the structure of experience impacts and possibly even determines what and how we remember.
 
Show notes on the website
Or watch on youtube