The Cognitations podcast explores how the fascinating quirks of the mind and the world can be understood through the lens of cognitive science. Recorded at several universities like the University of Cambridge, École normale supérieure (ENS - Paris) & Université Grenoble Alpes, the podcast provides insights from leading scientists in the field.
For the academic year 2025-2026, this podcast is financially supported by the The European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association (EHBEA)
EP #24 | How Kids Drive Cultural Évolution | Sheina Lew-Levy
We usually think of childhood as an extended preparatory period for adulthood, a time when kids just passively absorb the complex cultural knowledge, skills, and languages that we adults pass down to them. But what if we have the story completely backward? What if children aren’t just acquirers of culture, but active, independent producers of it?
Today’s guest, associate professor Sheina Lew-Levy, has spent an immense amount of time investigating human childhood cross-culturally. As a co-author of a recent paper titled “Children as agents of cultural adaptation”, she provides a fresh perspective that casts children as one of the central drivers that shape human culture.
Credits:
Interview: Tanay Katiyar and Jay Richardson
Editing: Jay Richardson
Communication: Tanay Katiyar
Music: Thelma Samuel and Robin Baradel
Artwork: Ella Bergru
4 Sept 2026
EP #23 | Cultural Varieties of Status-Seeking
We all know the feeling. The urge to be respected, to be someone in the eyes of our peers. All of this arising from a human desire for social status. It is easy to think that this hunger for status is a modern obsession, a consequence and amplifier of inequities in various societies. If we buy into the idea that our ancestors in the deep past were egalitarian, we might think that they were not that interested in status-seeking. Is this really the case? If not, what are the different ways in which people seek status across diverse, seemingly egalitarian, societies? Counterintuitively, can these status pursuits actually lead to higher equality?Today’s guest, Chris von Rueden, Professor at the University of Richmond, has looked across several non-industrialised populations in the quest to answer these questions.Media Recommendations1. Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior by Christopher Boehm2. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin3. Parasite (Film)4. Dr. Strangelove (Film)
Credits:
Interview: Tanay Katiyar and Jay Richardson
Editing: Tanay Katiyar
Communication: Tanay Katiyar
Music: Thelma Samuel and Robin Baradel
Artwork: Ella Bergru
This episode is sponsored by The European Behaviour and Evolution Association (EHBEA)
8 May 2026
EP #22 | Religion as Make-Believe | Neil Van Leeuwen
Religion is a puzzling phenomenon. On the one hand, it has been a major historical motor, shaping civilizations and guiding billions of lives. On the other hand, the core of religion centers around beings and realms that we simply cannot see, touch, or measure. One might then wonder, how can religious beliefs be both more important to us than ordinary beliefs, and more removed from what we can know to be the case? In his recent book, Religion as Make-Believe, Neil Van Leeuwen offers a provocative answer: religious beliefs have this puzzling aspect because they are, in reality, a kind of imagining, not so different from that which guides child’s play. Media Recommendations1. Movie: Conclave
Credits:
Interview: Tanay Katiyar and Jay Richardson
Editing: Tanay Katiyar
Communication: Tanay Katiyar
Music: Thelma Samuel and Robin Baradel
Artwork: Ella Bergru
This episode is sponsored by The European Behaviour and Evolution Association (EHBEA)
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
503
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
20 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 47 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
40
Social presence
0
YouTube
66
Engagement
71
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