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The It's Innate! Podcast

@theitsinnatepc.bsky.social

613 followers 19 following 55 posts

Developmental cognitive scientists Deon (deontbenton.bsky.social) & Jenny (jinjingjenny1.bsky.social) debate the origins of knowledge. Occasionally joined by our editor extraordinaire, Jenna DiStefano (jennadistefano.bsky.social) itsinnate.fireside.fm

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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

We’re back with episode 2 of “A Conversation with a Future Luminary”! Jenna talks with UMass Boston graduate students, @ckoolh.bsky.social and @quinnpham.bsky.social about time management, working memory, episodic future thinking, collecting data in museums, and much more! itsinnate.fireside.fm/45

itsinnate.fireside.fm

A conversation with future luminaries #2: Candice Koolhaas and Quinn Pham

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Jenny Wang 👶 🧮 @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

An inspiring conversation! But also a mystery... Give it a listen and find out what crime was committed!

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Deon T. Benton @deontbenton.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

So lovely to chat with my former postdoc mentor and to learn some new things about him! ;-)

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

New ep! 🚨 We chatted with Brown Professor Dave Sobel about the blicket detector, poetry, early-life tragedy, and even his early life of “crime.” 😂 Plus, we chatted about his recent Psychological Review paper on reach tracking and inhibitory control in children. itsinnate.fireside.fm/44

itsinnate.fireside.fm

Staying ahead of the curv[ature deviance] (with Dave Sobel)

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

New ep! 🚨 We’re kicking off our new series, “A Conversation with a Future Luminary,” hosted by @jennadistefano.bsky.social, spotlighting grad student life and research. First up: Rachel Foster on grad school, sociocultural influences on delay of gratification, and more! itsinnate.fireside.fm/43

itsinnate.fireside.fm

The ultimate delay of gratification test? Graduate school.

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

In case you missed it, we released another episode! In it, we chat with Professor Tamar Kushnir -- Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University -- about children's beliefs about others' belief change, among other things. Check it out, yeah? itsinnate.fireside.fm/42

itsinnate.fireside.fm

Change starts with believing that things can be different (with Tamar Kushnir)

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

New ep! 🚨 Prof. Tamar Kushnir talks about her academic path & training alongside some of cognitive science’s biggest names such as Prof. Alison Gopnik. Then we chat about her latest third-person belief-revision paper & debate whether associative learning can explain it. itsinnate.fireside.fm/42

itsinnate.fireside.fm

Change starts with believing that things can be different (with Tamar Kushnir)

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

We look forward to our conversation tomorrow with Professor Tamar Kushnir about her journey and latest work published in Cognition on children's beliefs about rational belief revision in others (co-authors: Drs. Pearl Han Li pearlhanli.bsky.social and Laura Soterlaurasoter.bsky.social)!

laurasoter.bsky.social

Laura Soter (@laurasoter.bsky.social)

philosophy prof @ YorkU

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Ryan Lei @ryanlei.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Had fun chatting with Deon about the work my lab does, and the journey to get there!

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

New ep! 🚨 Deon chatted with Dr. Ryan Lei (ryanlei.bsky.social) about his academic journey, his work on intersectionality & intersectional invisibility, & SLACs. Plus, we discuss how race impacts kid's gender categorizations. And of course, plenty of mechanism talk! itsinnate.fireside.fm/41

itsinnate.fireside.fm

"Friends / ones (our social cognition) can depend on" (with Ryan Lei)

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Interested in SLACs? The difference between them & R1s? Intersectionality prototype development? Then you're in for a treat! Tomorrow we get to chat with the inimitable Dr. Ryan Lei (ryanlei.bsky.social) about these very things! Jenny is away, so Deon will be flying solo for this one. Stay tuned!

ryanlei.bsky.social

Ryan Lei (@ryanlei.bsky.social)

Associate Professor of Psychology at Haverford College. Interested in social cognitive development.

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

If this site ever goes down, you can now find us on Facebook! www.facebook.com/profile.php?...

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

New ep! 🚨 We chatted with Dr. Shari Liu (shariliu.bsky.social) about her recent Nature Reviews Psychology paper. How do infants make sense of other people's minds? According to Shari, part of the answer lies in understanding the physical world. itsinnate.fireside.fm/40

itsinnate.fireside.fm

Mind o̶v̶e̶r̶ Matter? (with Shari Liu)

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

We are SO excited to chat with Dr. Shari Liu (@shariliu.bsky.social) about her scientific journey and, most importantly, about her recent Nature Reviews paper entitled "How physical information is used to make sense of the psychological world"!

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

In case you missed our latest episode, check it out below!

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

NEW EPISODE 🚨 Part II is here! Jenny & Deon continue their discussion of Bayesian models and number cognition, including how Lee and Sarnecka used the same Bayesian model to test two competing theories of how children acquire number knowledge. itsinnate.fireside.fm/39

itsinnate.fireside.fm

Give-N you Bayes and Backpropagation (Pt. II)

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

New ep! 🚨 In Part I of this 2-part episode, Jenny & Deon discuss connectionist modeling, developmental change, developmental tasks, one-hot vs. distributed representations, the give-N task, Bayesian models, Marr’s levels, & more. Stay tuned for Part II! itsinnate.fireside.fm/38

itsinnate.fireside.fm

Give-N you Bayes and Backpropagation (Pt. I)

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

The fun continues! In an upcoming episode, Jenny and Deon discuss connectionist modeling, then dive into Lee & Sarnecka (2010), their Bayesian model of the give-N task, and what a more mechanistically-oriented (in Marr's algorithm sense) connectionist version might look like

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

New ep! 🚨 We chatted with our editor Jenna's PI, Dr. Katie Graf Estes, about her academic journey, mentorship, and dealing with failure. We also discuss her Psych Science paper, "Can Infants Map Meaning to Newly Segmented Words?: Statistical Segmentation and Word Learning." itsinnate.fireside.fm/37

itsinnate.fireside.fm

From statistics to meaning (with Katie Graf Estes)

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

The pleasure, truly, was ours!

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

New ep! 🚨 We chatted with Dr. Viridiana Benitez (viribeni.bsky.social) about her academic journey and mentorship. We also discuss her Current Biology paper, “Predictable Events Enhance Word Learning in Toddlers,” as well as her work on predictability and bilingualism. itsinnate.fireside.fm/36

itsinnate.fireside.fm

The goldilocks of predicability (with Viridiana Benitez)

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

New ep! 🚨 We chat with Dr. Richard Prather (pratherlab.bsky.social) about his path into cognitive science, numerical development, & computational modeling—plus a deep dive into why the field needs a more 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 approach & what that actually means for researchers today. itsinnate.fireside.fm/35

itsinnate.fireside.fm

A 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 take on the cognitive sciences (with Richard Prather)

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Great news! It's Innate! is now available on Apple Podcasts! Listen and subscribe here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

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The It's Innate! Podcast

Education Podcast · Updated Biweekly · Two opinionated developmental cognitive scientists wax theoretical about how infants and children acquire knowledge!

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

We're looking forward to our conversation tomorrow with Dr. Richard Prather (pratherlab.bsky.social) about what it means to apply a critical approach to the cognitive sciences and to releasing the episode shortly thereafter! Don't forget to let us know who you'd like to hear from next!

pratherlab.bsky.social

Richard. (@pratherlab.bsky.social)

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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

A little teaser of upcoming guests: 🎉Dr. Richard Prather -- addressing the "homogenous samples" fallacy (pratherlab.bsky.social) 🎉Dr. Viridiana Benitez (viribeni.bsky.social) -- infant statistical learning 🎉Dr. Alessandra Geraci -- innate socio evaluation & sensitivity to ostensive pointing

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

New ep! 🚨 In the first half, they discuss Jenny’s recent paper showing that children’s number estimates can be influenced by the gender of the person providing the estimate. In the second half, they talk about Deon's recent paper examining children's causal judgements. itsinnate.fireside.fm/34

itsinnate.fireside.fm

"There are only so many experiments one can do!"

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

New ep! 🚨 In it, we introduce a new member of our team — Jenna DiStefano (@jennadistefano.bsky.social) — and chat with her about her work — how Infant Directed Speech varies across context. With Jenna as our editor, we may *finally* be able to release episodes regularly! itsinnate.fireside.fm/33

itsinnate.fireside.fm

Finding common ground (with Jenna DiStefano)

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

We're ecstatic to be talking today with Dr. Vlad Ayzenberg (‪@vayzenb.bsky.social‬) about his recent paper in Science Advances exploring the mechanisms that underpin object recognition in young children and adults. Stay tuned!

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

🚨 New ep! We talk w/ Professor Kiley Hamlin (@jkileyhamlin.bsky.social‬) about her dev sci path, training w/ legends (Woodward, Wynn, Bloom, Santos), & her Nature Comms paper showing 5-day-olds prefer helpers over hinderers. Plus: reconciling ManyBabies & replication woes. itsinnate.fireside.fm/31

itsinnate.fireside.fm

Moral kombat (with Kiley Hamlin)

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Want to know what makes today so special?! We get to chat with the inimitable Professor Kiley Hamlin (@jkileyhamlin.bsky.social‬) about her science journey, her recent paper in Nature Communications showing that sociomoral evaluation may be innate, and more! Stay tuned for the episode!

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Jenny Wang 👶 🧮 @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

An inspirational and fun conversation with @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social!

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

In case you missed it, our discussion with Professor Rebecca Saxe (@rebeccasaxe.bsky.social‬) is live! Give it a listen, why don't ya?

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

🚨 New Episode! 🚨 We're thrilled to release another installment of "A conversation with a luminary," featuring *over 2 hours* with Professor Rebecca Saxe. We discuss her early life, science journey, mentorship under Nancy Kanwisher, her Theory of Mind work, & more! So fun! itsinnate.fireside.fm/30

itsinnate.fireside.fm

A conversation with a luminary #5: Rebecca Saxe

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

The good times keep rolling (at least for the pod)! We're so thrilled to be chatting today with Professor Rebecca Saxe (‪@rebeccasaxe.bsky.social‬) about her scientific journey, remarkable career, and much more. This will be another installment of "A conversation with a luminary". Stay tuned!

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Reupping this ↓ Oh, and spoiler: we'll be chatting with the inimitable Dr. Kiley Hamlin (@jkileyhamlin.bsky.social‬) on Aug 6 about that new Nature Comms paper showing that 5-day-olds are sensitive to helping & hindering! Could sociomoral evaluation (or its ingredients) really be innate?!

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Vlad Ayzenberg @vayzenb.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

My paper with @stellalourenco.bsky.social ‬is now out in Science Advances! We found that children have robust object recognition abilities that surpass many ANNs. Models only outperformed kids when their training far exceeded what a child could experience in their lifetime doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Fast and robust visual object recognition in young children

The visual recognition abilities of preschool children rival those of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence models.

Reposted by The It's Innate! Podcast

Victoria Southgate @vhsouthgate.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Sharing our new paper published today in Nature Communications. In my view, this is our clearest demonstration to date that something profoundly changes in how infants encode the world around them before and after the emergence of self-representation. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The self-reference memory bias is preceded by an other-reference bias in infancy - Nature Communications

A classic feature of human memory is that we remember information better when it refers to ourselves. Here, the authors show that before the emergence of self-concept, infants instead remember informa...

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Looks like we might have to have Dr. Hamlin and/or Dr. Geraci on to discuss this super cool paper!

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Zsuzsa Kaldy @zsuzsakaldy.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Shameless self-promotion #DevPsy #PhdSky #PsychSciSky

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Zsuzsa Kaldy @zsuzsakaldy.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Thanks, @deontbenton.bsky.social and @jinjingjenny1.bsky.social for letting me talk about my career and my beloved mentors 🙂

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

🚨 New Episode! Our recent chat w/ Dr. Zsuzsa Kaldy (@zsuzsakaldy.bsky.social ) is up! We chat about her cog sci journey, her work on infant working memory, and a recent paper in which she argues that attention and working memory work in concert to pursue goals. So much fun! itsinnate.fireside.fm/29

itsinnate.fireside.fm

A happy little dance between attention and working memory (with Zsuzsa Kaldy)

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The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 29/06/2025

We want to hear from you, dear listener! Who would you like to hear us chat with on the next episode of The It's Innate! podcast? Nominate them in the comments below!

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 29/06/2025

We want to hear from you, dear listener! Who would you like to hear us chat with on the next episode of The It's Innate! podcast? Nominate them in the comments below!

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

🚨 New episode! In this episode, we chat with graduate student extraordinaire, Sholei Croom, about their PNAS paper, "Seeing and Understanding Epistemic Actions". The paper explored whether learners can intuit what others are trying to learn simply from their actions. itsinnate.fireside.fm/28

itsinnate.fireside.fm

Seeing (can help you infer what someone else) is believing (with Sholei Croom)

Reposted by The It's Innate! Podcast

Nora Newcombe @noranewcombe.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Super fun to do! Thanks @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

🚨 New episode! We are excited to be releasing another "A conversation with a luminary" episode. In it, we chat with Professor Nora Newcombe (@noranewcombe.bsky.social) about her science journey, the geometric module, empiricism & nativism, among other things. Enjoy! itsinnate.fireside.fm/27

itsinnate.fireside.fm

A conversation with a luminary #4: Nora Newcombe

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Wondering when the next episode is going to drop? Fair question. We’ve got great convos waiting to be released, & we just need help getting them out! This is why we're looking for a PhD student in developmental cognitive science (or related field) to join our team as an editor!

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

We are beyond excited to be talking with the distinguished Professor Nora Newcombe (@noranewcombe.bsky.social) today about her journey in science, her work on spatial thinking, among other things! Stay tuned for the episode!

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

So thrilled to announce that we've released another "A conversation with a luminary" episode. In this long episode, we chat with luminary Professor Susan Carey! She talks about her career, the evolution of developmental cognitive science, iconic representations, and more! itsinnate.fireside.fm/26

itsinnate.fireside.fm

Episode 26: A conversation with a luminary #3: Susan Carey

The It's Innate! Podcast @theitsinnatepc.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Be sure to listen to our latest episode, in which we chat with Professor Gert Westermann about how curiosity might work (among other things). itsinnate.fireside.fm/25

itsinnate.fireside.fm

Something to pique your curiosity (with Gert Westermann)