4: Wil Cunningham

Welcome to Episode 4, where Professor WIL CUNNINGHAM and I discuss the beauty of complexity, psychology’s language trap, and the unconscious processes that shape our conscious motivations. We also talk about the aesthetics of data analysis, what it might feel like to discover that ESP was real, and the various factors that lead Wil to a life in the sciences. Wil is a Professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Psychology and at the Rotman School of Management. And Wil has received about a bazillion awards for his work, including a Janet Taylor Spence Award For Transformative Early Career Contributions from the Association for Psychological Science. He’s the current Editor at Psychological Inquiry, and he’s served on a bunch of editorial boards, from the journal Emotion to Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. I don’t have a Wil Cunningham book to link to here, though I do have things for you to check out if you’re interested in reading more. But before I get to that, I feel compelled to share with you a picture (left) that Wil sent me only the week before this episode was posted, that shows the real inner workings of the modern scientific laboratory: a couple of hacked together old computers that people in Wil’s lab thought were obsolete. (Extra points for the desk positioned to face the blank cinderblock wall.) Wil and I like to use a term we invented for situations like these, which is Scrappy Science. Scrappy Science is science that boldly pushes forward when resources are not available, either in abundance or at all. And for those of you who are not scientists, here’s a little secret: Although not all science is Scrappy Science, I’d estimate that about 85% of it is. Scrappy Science is the science that scientists manage to do against the odds, when salaries are relatively low, old materials are all that’s available, and, often enough, you’ve got to just invent the tool you need because it literally doesn’t exist otherwise. Wil Cunningham is the consummate Scrappy Scientist! And here are those readings I promised! Check them out: Hierarchical Brain Systems Support Multiple Representations of Valence and Mixed Affect Affective Flexibility: Evaluative Processing Goals Shape Amygdala ActivityAttitudes and Evaluations: A Social Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective * * * As always, remember that this podcast is brought to you by VQR and the Center for Media and Citizenship. Plus, we're a member of the TEEJ.FM podcast network. AND... The music of CIRCLE OF WILLIS was composed and performed by Tom Stauffer, Gene Ruley and their band THE NEW DRAKES. You can purchase this music at their Amazon page.

• TRANSCRIPT

  Jim Coan

  From VQR and the Center for Media and Citizenship, this is episode four of Circle of Willis, where neuroscientist Wil Cunningham and I discuss the beauty of complexity and the unconscious processes that shape our conscious motivations. You know you want to listen, but you probably don't know why.

  Jim Coan

  Hey, everyone, it's Jim Coan. This is my podcast Circle of Willis. I guess I want to start with a few questions for this episode. So here goes. First, what's an emotion? And how do our memories shape and inform our preferences? How are our experiences and behaviors influenced by our goals? And at the end of the day, why are we so saddled with all these stereotypes and prejudices? I bring these questions up because this episode's guest Wil Cunningham has received actually numerous awards for his groundbreaking research, addressing each of these questions, all from the perspective of brain structure and function. Because he's a neuroscientist at the University of Toronto, where he's specifically a professor of psychology and also has an appointment at the Rotman School of Management. One of the funny things about this particular conversation is that Wil and I don't actually talk all that much about his specific research. For that, I guess I'll have to have him back for another chat. But don't worry, because instead Wil and I get into a really high level, sort of abstract conversation, almost right away. Discussing, among many other things Will's, love of complexity, the aesthetics of data analysis, even what it might feel like to discover that ESP was real, something, by the way, that neither of us think is a possibility.

  Jim Coan

  Although we don't spend a lot of time getting into Will's work, specifically, our interview satisfies a number of my goals for this podcast anyway. Not least sort of capturing what a conversation with Wil is really like. I mean, he's someone who who's genuinely in love with complexity. He's a guy who likes to be challenged with philosophical puzzles. And it's a lot of fun to think out loud with him. And anyway, though, understanding Will's work isn't always easy, you know, once you start to understand his process, and that's what this interview really gives you access to that sort of the way his mind works, you start to see how he's been able to unpack some of our most mundane experiences in his research to reveal really just how sophisticated and complex our minds really are. And as he says, somewhere in here, our conscious experience of just about anything, is the end result of a really 1000s of processes going on outside of our awareness. And I think that's pretty cool. And speaking of cool, in this conversation, we also get to learn a little bit about Will's life, his adult life, anyway. How his interests led him towards science in general and chance tipped him towards psychology in particular, and then how neuroscience captured his heart in graduate school. But here's my favorite part, really, this recorded conversation sort of captures, in real time, Wil and I moving from sort of, you know, pretty good friends and colleagues to close friends. Sort of going up a notch in our relationship. Sounds funny to say, but it's true. I would say we were good friends, we were pretty good friends and certainly good colleagues before this day where I asked him to come and participate in this recording session. And during this day, we really we sort of took it up a level got to know each other a lot better. And this particular interview sort of captures that process. Our process of of opening up more about things that have happened to us, things we've done, things we're interested in, and all that. So you know I love this recording for all kinds of reasons but that last reason probably tops the list. And anyway, I'm really I'm happy to share that with you. So folks, open your minds now cuz you gotta really get your thinking caps on with this conversation with Wil Cunningham. You got to get a focus. Focus now because here's Wil Cunningham. So you're on, you're on sabbatical, right?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yes.

  Jim Coan

  And what are you doing with your sabbatical?

  Wil Cunningham

  Actually, I spent the first half of my sabbatical teaching graduate stats.

  Jim Coan

  Sucks, dude. That's a bad sabbatical.

  Wil Cunningham

  Two search committees.

  Jim Coan

  It's a dumb idea.

  Wil Cunningham

  And the scanner committee. Liz Paige Gould actually came by a few weeks ago, I think. I believe in intervention for me that like I'm doing quite poorly, and I think that she may be grumpy if I reappear. Yeah, so I really just started probably last week with this trip to UVA. So primarily just visiting friends, visiting smart people, and hopefully doing smart stuff. Smart stuff with smart people.

  Jim Coan

  That's so unlike you.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, I'm a parasite right? I'll feed upon your energy.

  Jim Coan

  Okay. I'll do my best. You know, it's funny, because my voice is all messed up and I have a cold, of course. So, you know, there was this interesting, I did an interview with John Allen a few weeks ago, and one of the questions was asked, actually, by Bethany Teachman, I'm gonna I'm gonna invoke her question for the second time.

  Wil Cunningham

  Here's where you go grab that key there.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, I don't know why that's here.

  Wil Cunningham

  It was kind of beautiful. You had this very dramatic moment, like, I'm going to envoke Bethany Teachman.

  Jim Coan

  And I'm picked up a key because... it doesn't symbolize anything. I was just like, why is that here? And I compulsively type. So her question was, after we were talking about frontal EEG asymmetry, she's like, how do I describe this to my grandmother? It really struck me because I struggle with that all the time. You know, my own family doesn't really have any idea what I'm doing a lot of the time. And so, you know, they're like, well, you know, they ask the reasonable question, what are you doing? So I get to just get tongue tied. Well, I study the brain. Well, what about it? So how do you describe what you do to your grandma?

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, it's funny. Probably using the same words that used to say to you and you'd probably look at me funny.

  Jim Coan

  I didn't say you did a good job.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, no, yeah. I'm a probably quite terrible this. Actually a Jay J Van Bavel oftentimes says that people come to him and ask, do you have any idea what Will's talking about? So I'm convinced that...

  Jim Coan

  I wasn't gonna say anything. So clearly, Jay's already gotten there. But you know, when I think about you, I think of you as a cognitive neuroscientist, probably first.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  But also a statistician, a programmer. You know, you're a big part of the world of emotion research sort of broadly construed.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, I think it all comes down to the fact that I'm not quite sure why anything is anything at some level.

  Jim Coan

  I forgot

  Jim Coan

  That got very deep very quickly.

  Wil Cunningham

  Apparently, or mysteriously. Well, luckily, you're a trained clinical psychologist. We can have the therapy, on the couch later.

  Jim Coan

  I gotcha covered.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, at some level, I think that as a psychologist, and I guess as a person, there's a belief that the world... There's a desire for the world to be a little more mysterious, right? Than it actually is. But I just really want to believe at some level, at a metaphysical level, that there's more than kind of the everyday simple explanations for things, right? That the categories that we use to explain behavior, or the way that we think about things or, I mean, this is why I was loving the emotion research now, where some people argue that emotions might not even exist, right? They might just simply be aspects of ongoing conscious experience that we label emotion.

  Jim Coan

  Right, right. Right. Clusters of phenomena we call.

  Wil Cunningham

  Exactly. And...

  Jim Coan

  A thing.

  Wil Cunningham

  And I think that that's where things get interesting, because it's a way of kind of re articulating what seems like mundane experience...

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Into ways that at least we can pretend are not mundane.

  Jim Coan

  The thing that is really striking, it's very Wil Cunningham is that you know, many people... the desire is to find some way to make complex phenomenon more simple to understand and you know, that sort of Occam's Razor.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yes.

  Jim Coan

  You're like hell with Occam's razor. I want to bring on the complexity.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah. I think about this oftentimes.

  Jim Coan

  You definitely don't shy away from that complexity.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, not in the slightest.

  Jim Coan

  You go you dive right in.

  Wil Cunningham

  So yeah, whenever I see the psychology talks, right? Where someone says, you know, what's the cause of empathy? Or, you know, is political orientation caused by A or B? Right? And you look at these like one variable models. And it just seems like my everyday experience isn't caused by a single variable. So I think that partly my interest in the complexity is simply trying to kind of move up the level of analysis to be slightly more complex. I don't think that the level of analysis that I think about or the way that I think about things necessarily is the correct way. I mean, there are people who are molecular biologists, they're going to think that my level of resolution is ridiculously over simplified.

  Jim Coan

  Yep.

  Wil Cunningham

  So I just think that we need lots of people studying things at different levels of resolution. Kind of keeping us all in check. Oftentimes, I like to be reminded that you don't need to explain a phenomenon with a 17 way interaction, righ? If a two by two gets you most of the way. So I think science needs all people at all levels of resolution. And I think that I just tend to enjoy thinking about the complexity of things. I am very dissatisfied with very simple A causes B explanations and my guess that's probably more dispositional. Right? Rather than being something having to do with a specific way of approaching science.

  Jim Coan

  So you know, on the one hand, there's sort of a lack of fear of that complexity, but also an appreciation of it. It brings up another thing that I know that I can talk with you about but not everybody, which is there's an aesthetic element oftentimes for me, in the data analysis in the in the models, the conceptual models. You know, sometimes it's beautiful. Sometimes it's not as beautiful.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, I like the fact you use the word beautiful. And I'm probably going to completely butcher this, but you basically said that the person's interview is to get you to say things that I...

  Jim Coan

  I want you to say stuff you're going to regret later.

  Wil Cunningham

  Highly regret. And when...

  Jim Coan

  That's my goal.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, oh, this is going to be it or among them. when I read Brian Greene's book, right, the Elegant Universe. What I liked about the way that he presented, you know, talking about things like string theory, there was a sense in reading his book that he was getting more and more complicated, right? You have these very simple ways of thinking about particles and waves. And so he's talking about these strings vibrating in 11 dimensions, or whatever it is, right? And I believe it's 11 dimension.

  Jim Coan

  Oh my God help me.

  Wil Cunningham

  And some of them are all wrapped up smaller in on each other. And I mean, I have no idea. I'm not a physicist, but it seems compelling. But what I liked about it was that he kind of pulled things apart. And it got more and more complex. And then suddenly, it seemed like terms start canceling, right? By pulling it out in a more and more complex way, he was able to find an elegant kind of solution. Almost like simplicity starts reemerging again, once you've actually pulled it apart. And so I don't think the goal I necessarily have is for things to be complicated. But maybe it takes pulling things apart to actually find the right number of few components that more accurately represents things.

  Jim Coan

  I mean, there's statistical approaches to doing things like this. You know, like, there's sort of stepwise regression. But I think you're talking about something related, but maybe slightly different. Which is, it's sort of it's that elegance idea, you know?

  Wil Cunningham

  I think that what I like about some of these approaches is the realization that, like you said, use stepwise regression, right? You measure variables and you assume that the numbers we've attached to these categories are the variables of interest.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right. I think what's interesting about pulling things apart, is you might realize that the variables that we're using aren't the right ones, right? So you throw fear into your model, right? So fear becomes a predictor of say, arousal or fear of vigilance.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  But that presupposes that fear is actually the variable of interest as opposed to some component of the thing that we label fear.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right? And it takes pulling apart the complexity to start seeing what the component pieces are to define these causal relationships. So thinking about things like alchemy, right? Versus what you consider to be modern chemistry or kind of modern physics.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right? That's for a period of time, you're thinking about what the building blocks of terestrial matter are.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  And they were very labeled things. Things that we'd had in our... had words for for some time. And you were trying to integrate all of that together.

  Jim Coan

  Right.

  Wil Cunningham

  You know, how much fire and air is in gold. And it really wasn't until reconceptualizing the idea of matter, right? And getting some of like the Periodic Table of Elements.

  Jim Coan

  Yep.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right? We started thinking about electrons and...

  Jim Coan

  Similar process of thought, but different constituents entierly.

  Wil Cunningham

  Exactly. And suddenly, you start to see all of the relationships, right? What's the relationship between say, gold and iron? And hydrogen and helium? And how do you integrate that to, say get water or chair? Right? And I think that's really, things like chemistry are probably the type of field it is right now with its rigor and it's you know, pretty high variance explained.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right? Because of conceptualizing the building blocks of the right level of resolution. And I worry in psychology because we're studying the minds that were trapped with the words that, you know, we've had for 1000s or tens, of 1000s of years. You know, perception, emotion, cognition, fear, disgust, perception, memory, right? Attention, right? These are all things that seem very real to us and so we want to know, you know, how much of prejudice is how much attention and how much, you know, memory?

  Jim Coan

  Yep.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right? And perhaps, we're going to get the kind of parsimonious elegance if we stopped talking about things in these emerging states. So the same way that you just said, right fear is anemergent state. Perhaps all these things are emergent states and we're being hindered in some ways by having a scientific language that also matches the lay language, right? Perhaps like, it's useful to have words that don't correspond to everyday experience, right? That end up being the building blocks to integrate into things that map onto everyday experience, right? So I see complexity as a temporary state. It's necessary for the correct parsimony.

  Jim Coan

  Well, and I wonder if some complexity is also a little bit of a state of mind as you're working through a problem. So as you know, as you move through a problem and you realize there are more parameters in play, than you may be thought or hoped that it starts to feel very complex indeed. But as you come to understand it and you know, to really deeply understand it, the same level of on paper complexity, feels less complex and feels more elegant. Instead of complex. It's almost like there's a valuation to the two terms.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right, and especially if we're trying to link... you were talking about neuroscience, right? In psychology. You're mapping cortex, right? Into psychological processes, right? The probability that like, you know, Darwin gave us a brain that like, corresponds to a thesaurus.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah

  Wil Cunningham

  Right, is pretty unlikely.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. And I've often thought of it in terms of the difference between, you could sort of call neural constructs and verbal or psychological constructs, and there's very, very little chance that there's a strong mapping on to the other.

  Wil Cunningham

  Now, that said, there are certain things that I really hope I'm wrong on.

  Jim Coan

  Is this one of them?

  Wil Cunningham

  Wouldn't it be really cool, right? If the brain really was organized, right? Like a text book? I don't think it is in the slightest and I would bet...

  Jim Coan

  I think it's... gonna the story is gonna be a lot more about white matter than the gray matter the right then we've really appreciated it.

  Wil Cunningham

  So I have a question for you.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, oh, shit.

  Wil Cunningham

  Okay, so when Bem's paper came out.

  Jim Coan

  Which one?

  Wil Cunningham

  The ESP one.

  Jim Coan

  So the latest ESP one? He did one in 1991 too.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah the JPS one...

  Jim Coan

  Was just as bad. Did I just answer your question?

  Wil Cunningham

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Is there part of you that just wanted it to be true?

  Jim Coan

  In 2011, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology or JPSP, as we like to call it. One of psychologies most prestigious journals, published an article by Daryl Bem entitled, Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect. This article reported on nine experiments, apparently showing evidence for pre cognition and premonition. It's a long story. But I thought at the time, and I still think that the paper really shouldn't have been published, at least not in JPSP. I'm not really sure whether Wil holds that view. But anyway, in the exchange that follows, he challenges me to consider how I'd feel if ESP were discovered to be real. All right, back to our conversation. You know, if Bem publishes that study, he's not challenging anything in psychology. He's challenging things in physics. And I was like, yeah, come on. Forget it.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right. So that's that's what I want to get at right?

  Jim Coan

  Okay.

  Wil Cunningham

  Okay. I agree with you. You read those studies. They're clearly, sorry. Not right. But I think like the back of your brain like that's a place.

  Jim Coan

  It is, I'll call it my occipital lobe. The back.

  Wil Cunningham

  Was there someplace where there's like, wouldn't it be cool if psychology was able to show ESP? And there's something about the mystery, kind of like, something kind of magical....

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  As a science that we could find.

  Jim Coan

  So I guess what I was trying to say is that I don't think it's possible for psychology to show that there's ESP because it involves physical properties that would require a physicist.

  Wil Cunningham

  Sure.

  Jim Coan

  I mean, at least at the mechanism level.

  Wil Cunningham

  Okay.

  Jim Coan

  So in that sense, until there's a physicist mapping out the mechanism, the simplest explanation, the most parsimonious explanation to me is that something went wrong and we don't know what it is yet.

  Wil Cunningham

  Okay, now I want to push a little bit farther then. I guess I'm interviewing you now.

  Jim Coan

  I guess so, shit. And I have so many things I need to talk about.

  Wil Cunningham

  Okay, I'll get off this soon then.

  Jim Coan

  Okay.

  Wil Cunningham

  Okay. So at lunch, we were talking about the talking dog.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right?

  Wil Cunningham

  Right. I bring in Rover. Rover's like, hey, Jim. How's life?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Can you get me milk bone? Right? And you're like, clearly...

  Jim Coan

  I say, Yeah I'll get you a milkbone!

  Wil Cunningham

  Clearly, this is a talking dog. Yeah. Right. So suppose I bring you instead of like, Rover the dog like, you know, Rover the ESP genius, right?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  And he's like, literally, like just reading your mind.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right?

  Jim Coan

  So subjectively, I'm going, I'm thinking of this color or that visual scene? He's just telling me what I'm thinking?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, he knows what you're having for dinner later tonight.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Okay. So...

  Jim Coan

  That would freake me out.

  Wil Cunningham

  It would freak you out! You probably wouldn't need the physicist...

  Jim Coan

  To believe the phenomenon.

  Wil Cunningham

  To believe the phenomenon.

  Jim Coan

  I'd want him to do it with other people and I want them to be as self doubting as me.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, sure.

  Jim Coan

  Okay, so So all of these are...

  Wil Cunningham

  So now psychology has now done something where physics says this is entirely impossible. But here's, I guess you should drop Rover but...

  Jim Coan

  Right. Here's Rover. Here's Rover the ESP guy.

  Wil Cunningham

  The ESP dog. That talks.

  Jim Coan

  That talks. Because I said, just for backstory, I said, No dogs can talk. And you come to me with Rover.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, not only can he talk, he can also like have ESP. Right?

  Jim Coan

  Might as well.

  Wil Cunningham

  And so wouldn't that be fascinating? Again, I don't think this would ever happen. But if psychology could do that, that'd be kind of cool.

  Jim Coan

  I mean, if psychology could do that, that would be... You know, the analogy is for me, people have often asked me whether I believe in ghosts. Because when I was, it's actually that it happens to be the case that when I was a little kid, I was terrified of ghosts. And I had sleep problems, actually, for a while when I was like, you know, in my early teens, because I was afraid that a ghost was gonna... and now I cannot make contact with that person at all. Because I'm like, If I had any shred of evidence of, no matter how tenuous, that made me doubt the end of my existence after I die, I would love that.

  Wil Cunningham

  I see we're heading towards a belief in God here.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, no, not me. Because I have sort of concluded that that evidence is just not forthcoming and it's not likely to be. So in the sense that I would love to find real evidence of a ghost, I guess I would love to find real evidence of something like ESP. But I would have loved it more 10 years ago, before I've been through enough iterations of disappointment. Because now I'm like, Yeah, I don't want to. I don't want to entertain it, because I... You know, but interesting. Maybe it's that level of disappointment that betrays my desire for that stuff to be true.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, the reason why I ask you this is I think there's a link between what we were talking about earlier and this right? Which is, if we want psychology be finding the mysterious, right? If we don't have God anymore, we don't have like talking Rover who's like predicting your dinner.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right? Like finding like, a different way of conceptualizing reality is something that seems possible.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right. It's almost like what Freud talking about, guess what? You have this whole rest of your iceberg unconscious.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  That's pretty interesting.

  Wil Cunningham

  That's pretty interesting! In that, maybe that's real.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right? And so perhaps the desire for complexity and conceptualizing thinking in non ordinary language, perhaps that's like a new quest for God in a sense, right? It's a new way of conceptualizing reality.

  Jim Coan

  That's itself an interesting psychological question. You know, good ones for psychologists. Maybe someone is and I don't know about it.

  Speaker 1

  Maybe.

  Jim Coan

  But you know, is the impetus or the motivation to seek out these kinds of elegant explanations for otherwise inscrutable phenomenon, the same that sort of leads us to construct fantastic tales of gods flying around in their flaming chariots in the sky?

  Wil Cunningham

  Or I think what's even more interesting is coming up with extraordinary explanations for mundane things.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, right, right. Right. How does that table exist?

  Wil Cunningham

  Exactly? What's what's the what's the heritability of carpets? Oh my God, with a large enough sample size, you could probably find out.

  Jim Coan

  You'd probably find out. So, did you always want to do this? Was this like, you got up one morning as a junior high school kid and said, I'm gonna be a neuroscientist slash psychologist?

  Wil Cunningham

  I remember in high school, having to take that exam that told you what profession you were supposed to be and...

  Jim Coan

  Where was this by the way? Where did you grow up, anyway?

  Wil Cunningham

  Mainly in Connecticut.

  Jim Coan

  Mainly in Connecticut? What part?

  Wil Cunningham

  This is Fairfield, Connecticut. So, which was high school.

  Jim Coan

  It's like near, is that like near Stanford or?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, it's by the water. It's actually more near Bridgeport.

  Jim Coan

  Okay.

  Wil Cunningham

  But mainly grew up in Oxford. It's a small small town north of there. But I lived with my grandparents for a little bit, for a couple of years of high school to go to a slightly better High School in Fairfield.

  Jim Coan

  That's why you lived with your grandparents to go to the better high school? What'd your parents do? what were your parents doing?

  Wil Cunningham

  My father was in computers and my mother was in computers.

  Jim Coan

  And you are in computers.

  Wil Cunningham

  I am slightly in computers. Yes. Eventually, I perhaps stop letting them down and doing something that's real.

  Jim Coan

  Uh oh, you you were letting them down?

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, well we'll get to all that later. That's definitely couch conversation.

  Jim Coan

  Oh.

  Wil Cunningham

  But anyway, going back to why I wanted to all this... Deflection.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, I guess so. I want to proceed.

  Wil Cunningham

  Or, if the analysts in you...

  Jim Coan

  I do.

  Wil Cunningham

  Jim Coan, clinical psychologist.

  Jim Coan

  That's right. It's like a superhero title.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yes. So I remember in high school taking this exam, right? Where you're asked for his personality questions and the little computer does its thing and it tells you like, what career you're supposed to be.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  And at that point, I thought psychological testing was the dumbest thing on the planet, because I got my results, and it said, I believe psychologist, college professor, and like something else.

  Jim Coan

  Jesus Christ, bull's eye.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah. And it was complete bullshit, because I was gonna be a lawyer. Right?

  Jim Coan

  A lawyer.

  Wil Cunningham

  And I think it's it's kind of funny thinking back to that. Just like how much I complained. I think forest ranger maybe in the third.

  Jim Coan

  I identify with forest rangers. Sometimes.

  Wil Cunningham

  Take a walk in the woods. It's kind of nice. And it's kind of funny. So, I went to undergrad. I was a computer...

  Jim Coan

  Where did you go to undergrad?

  Wil Cunningham

  The college of William and Mary.

  Jim Coan

  Oh, that's right.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right here is Virginia!

  Jim Coan

  Down the road.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, exactly.

  Jim Coan

  I still have never been there. I heard it's very pretty.

  Wil Cunningham

  I'm goin g to be there in a couple....

  Jim Coan

  Weeks? Couple months?

  Wil Cunningham

  You should come down?

  Jim Coan

  I'll come up.

  Wil Cunningham

  I'll have to give you a tour. We can like walked down Dog's Street.

  Jim Coan

  Dog street?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah Dog Street.

  Jim Coan

  Is that why dogs keep coming up today?

  Wil Cunningham

  Presumably. Duke of Gloucester Street.

  Jim Coan

  Duke of Gloucester Street.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yes. Yes. So actually Dog streets. It's basically the one street in Williamsburg.

  Jim Coan

  Okay.

  Wil Cunningham

  It's where all the... They churn butter and the colonial people wander around.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  But... hoop and a stick. But yeah, so I went as a computer science chemistry double major.

  Jim Coan

  Wow.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  So why... So computer science, I get. Chemistry....

  Wil Cunningham

  It's because I was... It's what I was good at in high school. Right? And so you go do the thing that you're good at in high school because that's what you're supposed to do.

  Jim Coan

  Right away, I envy you almost painfully because chemistry was very hard for me.

  Wil Cunningham

  Really?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, it was.

  Wil Cunningham

  It's like just like puzzles.

  Jim Coan

  I know.

  Wil Cunningham

  I can imagine you being good at it.

  Jim Coan

  Ah, yeah, not so much. I mean, I did it for years. I did two years of chemistry in college, but it kicked my ass.

  Wil Cunningham

  Really? Interesting.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Okay, I feel we have to explore that. This isn't for this, but that blows my mind for some reason.

  Jim Coan

  Well...

  Wil Cunningham

  I mean, I hear you're soldering like woven together and...

  Jim Coan

  Yeah that's me. Anyway. So you were computer science and chemistry.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  And and you did that all the way. Did you graduate with that as your majors?

  Wil Cunningham

  I survived a semester of that.

  Jim Coan

  A semester. You went straight into college out of high school?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yes. And I was always interested in a little bit psychology, philosophy, and things like that kind of on the side. So I...

  Jim Coan

  Plus your test told you that that was what you were going to be.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, well, I ignored that because that was clearly wrong. Again, reactionary. So yeah, took John Nezlek's Intro to Psychology class my very first semester. And it was just like, the coolest class. like, what are these just like shamanistic type...

  Jim Coan

  Nice.

  Wil Cunningham

  You know, professors.

  Jim Coan

  Nice.

  Wil Cunningham

  I think there's some... I don't know if it's still the case, but it's some crazy percentage of the number of William and Mary students who actually take his section of Intro to Psychology. But again it's the on e I lucked into, right?

  Jim Coan

  Yes. Yes.

  Wil Cunningham

  Because it was at 11 o'clock. And I wasn't gonna wake up at eight, right? So...

  Jim Coan

  I love those kinds of... I love how those kinds of considerations wind up being so consequential in our lives, somehow.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, I wonder if he somehow knows that, like, he's gonna get like the wacky people at 11.

  Jim Coan

  Have you ever talked to him since?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, we still talk a lot, actually. I'm looking forward... I actually coordinated my trip back to William and Mary because he spends a lot of time in Poland now.

  Jim Coan

  Is that right?

  Wil Cunningham

  And so I wanted to make sure that he was going to be there for the visits.

  Jim Coan

  John Neslek.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, you should meet up he would love to. He's pretty fantastic.

  Jim Coan

  Cool. So you took his intro class. You shit your pants.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, yeah. It was just like, this was good, right? Like, this is like, life is interesting. Like, I thought Freud was like the shit

  Jim Coan

  Freud is the shit. I mean, you know, he doesn't have to be right.

  Wil Cunningham

  No. But he was interesting.

  Jim Coan

  Right. He was interesting and honest.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  And painful.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yep.

  Jim Coan

  To read.

  Wil Cunningham

  And at that point I decided to become a psychoanalyst.

  Jim Coan

  Nice.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right?

  Jim Coan

  Wow. Well, you know, I can see that... I think a lot of very analytical people like that approach.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, it was cool.

  Jim Coan

  It's very deconstructive.

  Wil Cunningham

  And again, it goes back to do of mysterious.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right? There's what you're conscious experience...

  Jim Coan

  This giant iceberg underneath the surface that's there to explore and understand.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, no, no. And I think what's interesting about it, right, is that going back, we talked earlier about complexity, right? You have your mundane conscious experience.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  And there was this idea that, like, there was so much sitting under the surface. Right? That like a conscious experience is like the end product.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Of 1000s of things going on that you have no idea.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  Which is undoubtedly true.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, exactly. And I just find that mind blowing.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right. So of course I...

  Jim Coan

  It is mind blowing.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah. So I talked to John and I said, I volunteered to like, you know, do research with him. Of course, I said, psychoanalysis. He said, how about some social- well actually. Sorry, John. I know you're not a social psychologist. How about personality psychology? Helping kind of code, you know, do data entry for him and things like that. But he really kind of took me under his wing. And it was amazing throughout the whole thing. So I switched to be a psychology major.

  Jim Coan

  So what years this. Was it like, your junior? No, this would be right away. Because...

  Wil Cunningham

  I think I might be revealing things to my parents if they ever listen to this. Like...

  Jim Coan

  You let them down sooner than they thought.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, I think I unofficially switched majors before I officially switched majors because I think you can continue being a computer science major, but stop taking your science classes.

  Jim Coan

  Clever.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yes. Yes. Yes. So I ended up doing that. At the same time, I was taking classes in religion. So like early Christianity. Mainly because I was dating a very attractive, very religious person.

  Jim Coan

  That's what you got to do, man, you gotta take your lumps.

  Wil Cunningham

  Exactly. Right. So see a lot of our conversations about kind of theological issues and I grew interested in East Asian religions. So took all the Buddhism classes, all of the...

  Jim Coan

  How about that. I had no idea about this.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yes, so I ended up for most of my time there being a double major in religion and psychology with taking all these philosophy classes which like...

  Jim Coan

  At William and Mary.

  Wil Cunningham

  Horrifying my parents because like I went there as a...

  Jim Coan

  That's like liberal arts hippie, dude.

  Wil Cunningham

  I loved it.

  Jim Coan

  That's awesome.

  Wil Cunningham

  William and Mary was like, I know at UVA and I not supposed to be saying these thing.

  Jim Coan

  Yes, you are.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Oh, William and Mary's was fantastic.

  Jim Coan

  Oh, good.

  Wil Cunningham

  It's so funny. I don't know how many people have gone through. Like Darrell Cameron just came out of there. You go through like the honors theses and the master's theses so many amazing you know, people kind of pop through there at some point or another. But I think that yeah, it was this amazing liberal arts. We were just supposed to like read literature and kind of think about religion and deconstruct religion.

  Jim Coan

  What time... When was this? It was the early 90s?

  Wil Cunningham

  Early- Yeah. So I started William and Mary in 91.

  Jim Coan

  Was Michael Rohrbaugh in 19... Does that name ring a bell?

  Wil Cunningham

  That does ring a bell.

  Jim Coan

  I thought he was at William and Mary at the time. He was a friend of mine.

  Wil Cunningham

  Undergrad there?

  Jim Coan

  No, no, he was a faculty.

  Wil Cunningham

  In what department?

  Jim Coan

  He wound up being in psychology. He wound up being faculty in the psych department at Arizona when I was there.

  Wil Cunningham

  Interesting. Yeah, maybe before or after my time.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, maybe.

  Wil Cunningham

  Or I may just have been oblivious.

  Jim Coan

  Could have been oblivious, thinking about, you know, pretty religious girls.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, that was no. But the real choice of college majors.

  Jim Coan

  Right.

  Wil Cunningham

  So... and I was really thinking psychoanalysis again, for almost all of my time in Ottawa. Looking at these different schools of psychoanalysis that kind of exist.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. You'd have been good at it.

  Wil Cunningham

  I just the funny thing is I half want to still do it.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. Maybe you should.

  Wil Cunningham

  I think it'd be kind of fun.

  Jim Coan

  I wouldn't judge you.

  Wil Cunningham

  No, no, no, no, no. And if you did-

  Jim Coan

  Paul Neil did. Paul Neil did till the day he died. I didn't tell you. I mean-

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah Paul Neil was a practicing analyst, old school with the couch sit behind the person with his paper and pencil for his entire career. He did it every Friday afternoon or Friday... all day or something.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, I mean, I really believe that it's useful to explore the meaning structure, right, that you build, right? If we're serious about this idea of complexity, so much of our conscious experience is the meaning that we apply to the universe.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  And exploring that it's just... so critical.

  Jim Coan

  This is definitely a theme with you.

  Wil Cunningham

  But yeah, so how to get into neuroscience and-

  Jim Coan

  So you go through. You're taking all the other classes, you're gonna be a psychoanalyst.

  Wil Cunningham

  Psychoanalyst.

  Jim Coan

  So clearly, you went to a grad school that was going to train you to do psychoanalysis.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, clearly... Yeah, that's exactly what Yale social psychology and cognitive neuroscience is all about.

  Jim Coan

  So help me figure out how you get from I'm going to be a psychoanalyst to I'm going to join the social psych graduate program at Yale for crying out- Yale.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah. Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  I'm not ashamed. I'm a little jealous.

  Wil Cunningham

  Why?

  Jim Coan

  Because Yale is amazing in social psychology.

  Wil Cunningham

  Arizona is pretty amazing also.

  Jim Coan

  Arizona, I had a great time. I loved graduate school. I loved every minute of it. But I have a hang up about the Ivies.

  Wil Cunningham

  Okay.

  Jim Coan

  I do. We're gonna have to save that for later.

  Wil Cunningham

  No, no, no. We'll have to save that for later because I find it fascinating. Because I kind of feel like it's weird. Like, I like to give talks like where ever people invite me.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, me too.

  Wil Cunningham

  And you go and you get these talks, these schools that like no one's ever heard of and everyone there's so smart.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right?

  Jim Coan

  There's smart people everywhere.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah. When you're talking about like, the top percentage of people in a field. The differentiation between like school one and school like three or in school three and school 12 is like next to nothing.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  It's all what you make of it.

  Jim Coan

  That's interesting.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  So how'd you get to Yale social psych?

  Wil Cunningham

  So I remember I was in the library waiting for-

  Jim Coan

  Did you go straight over?

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, no.

  Jim Coan

  Okay.

  Wil Cunningham

  I had my 2.9 GPA.

  Jim Coan

  2.9?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  What? Wil Cunningham?

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, yeah. No, that's...

  Jim Coan

  It's not terrible. I mean, you know, I remember getting into like a pre med honor society as an undergraduate with a pretty crappy.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  You know, my bio and chem were, like, 2.4-2.5. That was considered pretty good for that major.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, no, this was just me doing my own thing. I think that I really treated undergraduate as if I found the book interesting, I read it. And if I stopped finding it interesting, I stopped reading it. And...

  Jim Coan

  I'll never do anything but support that approach to life.

  Wil Cunningham

  Or if I found a different book I was interested in that wasn't related to the class, I would. And so I think that so I, to this day, I still try to figure out wheteher I did undergrad right or wrong. Because at one level, I remember talking, my friend David Rose about this. And I remember complaining. It was like, my third year grad school I was like, I think I squandered my undergraduate education.

  Jim Coan

  Oh, God I know.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right?

  Jim Coan

  Me too. It's so depressing.

  Wil Cunningham

  I took a class in cosmology. Presumably, I should know more about cosmology than I know right now. I took a class on like, Heidegger. Right? And I-

  Jim Coan

  No you did it right.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  Dude. You did it the right way. I squandered it.

  Wil Cunningham

  No, no, but I didn't read all the Heidegger. Right?

  Jim Coan

  Well nobody has.

  Wil Cunningham

  Okay. Maybe that's the illusion, right?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  But I think about like, if I'd take an undergrad more seriously, like there's all this stuff that I've may have, like, missed out. At the same time, you know, Dave looked at me and said: Yeah, and life would have been so different for you. Right? So, it all worked out but I almost wish...

  Jim Coan

  well, and I bet enough of that got in that you can't... you don't really necessarily know.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  Right. So it's part of- it's sort of part of the constituent makeup of Wil Cunningham when you are doing your fMRI analysis.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, I think what I would love to do is I would love to go back and do undergrad right now. Like almost even more so than go back and do psychoanalysis again. I would love to have a four year liberal arts degree. I would win the lottery, take a four year sabbatical, do undergrad again and come back to like, the university.

  Jim Coan

  Oh my God.

  Wil Cunningham

  Read the great books. Oh, it would be amazing.

  Jim Coan

  So that's not going to happen.

  Wil Cunningham

  There was the question you asked about, like how I got into this other way of doing. I was actually at the library and waiting for someone who was perpetually late. And I have a tendency that I just have to read whatever's in front of me.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, me too. That's why the internet's been so damaging.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh God. Like I read milk cartons. Right? Oh, yeah. And I just sit there and there was a book, just kind of sitting there like in that cart where they were supposed to put things back and it was a Ostrom, Hamilton, and Devine. Right? And the title of book was like, Social Cognition: Impact on Social Psychology. And it just happened to be the book sitting on top of the pile. And so I just picked it up. And I started reading, right, the back cover and the introduction. And they were talking about unconscious processes. Right?

  Jim Coan

  Ding ding ding.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right, yeah. All these things I thought were so cool about analysis. And I was like, you can do studies on this?

  Jim Coan

  Stop it.

  Wil Cunningham

  And it was like, that sounds kind of cool. And literally, that's what it happened. I became social cognition. This is so embarrassing. I actually got a license plate that said social cog on it. I still ...

  Jim Coan

  Fucking geek.

  Wil Cunningham

  I still have that license plate in my office. And Majin Banaji has the other one apparently in her office. Virginia social cog.

  Jim Coan

  That's awesome. So how does a guy who has a 2.9 GPA and saw a neat idea on a book cover get to Yale social psych for grad school? Without threats or bribes.

  Wil Cunningham

  You apply to grad school and you don't get in anywhere. And you get to have a crisis of faith and a crisis of self identity.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  And you get to go work minimum wage at the at the place that actually-

  Jim Coan

  Good for the soul.

  Wil Cunningham

  Good for the soul. Well, I had I believe it was $12,000 a year.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  But it had health care. Right?

  Jim Coan

  Doing what?

  Wil Cunningham

  I was... what was the exact title? Well, basically guy-in-bookstore.

  Jim Coan

  Guy in bookstore? So you're a guy in a bookstore?

  Wil Cunningham

  Stock the books.

  Jim Coan

  In Williamsburg?

  Wil Cunningham

  In Williamsburg. Right on Dog Street. It all comes back.

  Jim Coan

  There's that's Dog Street's gotta be a book title. It probably is.

  Wil Cunningham

  Likely. We can probably look it up later because we can read. But yeah, so I spent that-

  Jim Coan

  So what was the name of the bookstore?

  Wil Cunningham

  Rizzoli's.

  Jim Coan

  Rizzoli's? Is it still there?

  Wil Cunningham

  No, it's not there anymore.

  Jim Coan

  Oh shit. I wanted to go there and live the Wil Cunningham experience.

  Wil Cunningham

  The building is still there. It's just something else. But I'm gonna stand there and like just being all like in a month.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  But yeah, so I did this crazy thing where you could check out volumes of like journals and things like that. And, okay, if you think the other stuff was nerdy, this is gonna be like, this is going to be like, you might actually-

  Jim Coan

  Listen carefully, kids.

  Wil Cunningham

  You may actually kick me out of like, your house after this. I read section one of JP-SP for 12 years back.

  Jim Coan

  Okay, I just about freaked out because I thought you meant that you spent 12 years reading section one. So you read-

  Wil Cunningham

  12 years back issues of JP-SP.

  Jim Coan

  How long did that take you?

  Wil Cunningham

  It took me a year.

  Jim Coan

  A year? That's pretty good time. You must've been reading at a pretty good clip.

  Wil Cunningham

  Okay. Sometimes you don't read the whole article.

  Jim Coan

  Oh, come on.

  Wil Cunningham

  I know. Sometimes the figures are all you really need, but...

  Jim Coan

  Fine.

  Wil Cunningham

  But yeah, that's that's when I discovered you know, John Bars. I discovered Russ Fazio, and well you know, Mahji Banaji

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. Didn't she wind up becoming your advisor?

  Wil Cunningham

  And so it was actually the paper that... So it was a recent article as the one by Irene Blair and Mahji Banaji, where they were doing all of this kind of conscious-unconscious automatic controlled aspects of stereotyping and prejudice.

  Jim Coan

  Right. Stuff that actually matters a lot. That's that work.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah. So Blair Bonacci 1996. That's where I decided: That seems good. And the full content, I was reading all these books. And the great thing about working in a bookstore in a tourist place year round, is you have to spent a lot of time sitting on a chair, reading.

  Jim Coan

  Reading. Damn, man. Nice job. Nice use of your time.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, unfortunately, what this means is my knowledge of social psychology is about like 1982 to 1996. And it's all over.

  Jim Coan

  Cause then you got to do your own thing and not read anymore.

  Wil Cunningham

  You have to do you can't like learn. Yeah, so then William and Mary had a master's program. So I went to that for two years. And then from there.

  Jim Coan

  Oh, I see. So that makes- I mean because I was prepared. I was sitting here prepared to hear you tell a story where you go, you just write some like amazing letter to Mahzarin and you know, you have great cherries. And she's lik, Oh, yeah. This prodigy I have to...

  Wil Cunningham

  No I had to have the forgiveness masters. Yeah, but the forgiveness masters...

  Jim Coan

  At William and Mary?

  Wil Cunningham

  At William and Mary. Because luckily, they actually saw the transformation. Right?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  These are people who like I guess, you know, in retrospect, they would tell me like, We saw potential in you and why were you fucking it up?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Got to see me as the, like, Oh, he doesn't seem to be fucking it up anymore.

  Jim Coan

  Hooray! Come on in my son.

  Wil Cunningham

  And I shared an office with Kris Preacher.

  Jim Coan

  Really?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah. He had the office right next to me. Well, it's not shared. But they were tiny. So I kind of consider it shared.

  Jim Coan

  That's great.

  Wil Cunningham

  I don't exaggerate too much.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, just a little.

  Wil Cunningham

  But yeah. So then I applied to grad school. And that time, I was actually able to write a personal statement talking about my ideas about...

  Wil Cunningham

  Right. Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  These topics.

  Jim Coan

  So what did you do? You did a master's thesis, but what on?

  Wil Cunningham

  I actually I did it on, at that point people have been talking... It's funny. It's kind of like my talk here a little bit ago, where everyone's talking about your automatic preferences and your conscious preferences are entirely unrelated.

  Jim Coan

  Right.

  Wil Cunningham

  Unpredictive of each other. This was a really big idea back then.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  It's funny to think about my psychoanalysis way of thinking about things that made absolutely no sense to me. The conscious experience was not a function of your unconscious.

  Jim Coan

  Right. Right. Right.

  Wil Cunningham

  So simply just showing that the stuff was correlated, if you actually modelled it statistically properly.

  Jim Coan

  So there's a lot of foreshadowing in the whole rest of your... Model it right to do the right model.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah. And actually, that again was John Teslic. I mean, he ended up being - he and Pete Derrricks were my two advisors. So even then I had a psychology and cognitive psychology advisor.

  Jim Coan

  Nice.

  Wil Cunningham

  And you know, John was a modeler, like, he didn't care about social cog. He actually made fun of me for liking social cognition. He was like, Wow, two millisecond response difference that changes my life.

  Jim Coan

  That whole thing.

  Wil Cunningham

  But he was like, Hey, you want to model it? Let's model it. And so yeah, he's the one who taught me to think about things numerically.

  Jim Coan

  So what did you write when you wrote to Mahzarin? You said, Hey, you know, I think I can model your your thing very well.

  Wil Cunningham

  I don't actually remember what was in that personal statement. I do remember the-

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah I have no idea.

  Jim Coan

  I can't remember. I wrote a personal stat- I can't remember.

  Wil Cunningham

  I mean, I assume it was like halfway decent.

  Jim Coan

  Give me a position so I can stop living in a hovel.

  Wil Cunningham

  Exactly. I was living in a closet at that point, literally. Because there's a two and a half to two bedroom with closet. And the closet was big enough to put like a twin bed in. It's cheap. When you're making 12,000 a year. But I do remember when I did my interview at Indiana with Russ Fazio and I look back on this. I'm trying to figure out like what response I would have like a perspective crisis. I asked him for all his raw data from his 1995 paper. Because I wanted to reanalyze it.

  Jim Coan

  God, that is so awesome. I would have shit my pants if someone... You know, for people out there don't do that. I don't know if someone wanted to analyze my data. I'd be like, yeah, so I don't do that. My voice is going.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, I still have a three and a half floppy inch floppy disk.

  Jim Coan

  Oh, yeah. You still have it, the floppy disk?

  Wil Cunningham

  Ross on the second day handed me with all the raw data from his '95 paper.

  Jim Coan

  He gave it to you?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah give it to me the next day. So that's what I did the second night.

  Jim Coan

  I love him way more now.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, no, he was fantastic. He's like, Here's some data.

  Jim Coan

  That is such a great story.

  Wil Cunningham

  But it was also slightly naive too right?

  Jim Coan

  Of course, it is. Brilliantly naive. Beautifully naive. You know, people talking about that all the time in science about how naivete is a real... Who was it? Was it Keith Dean Simonson?

  Wil Cunningham

  Seems plausible.

  Jim Coan

  Because a lot of times people come: they don't know what they're not supposed to know.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  Or not supposed to ask, you're not supposed to do and so they they wind up sort of accidentally creating a very creative...

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  Coming with a very creative idea. But you went to Yale. You got into Yale.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yep.

  Jim Coan

  Your parents happy now?

  Wil Cunningham

  I believe so. I think they became a little more happier when I started doing neuroimaging. Right? That seemed a little more real.

  Jim Coan

  But that came later.

  Wil Cunningham

  Exactly.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. So Yale not good enough.

  Wil Cunningham

  I don't know.

  Jim Coan

  I'm not leaving it for later.

  Wil Cunningham

  No, no, no. You don't have to leave it for later. I don't know. So here's one of these funny things where like-

  Jim Coan

  Get him on the phone.

  Wil Cunningham

  It's possible. Like, it's possible that I just simply have this like neurotic personality that just kind of assumes that like, I'm never good enough for anybody.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. Interesting.

  Wil Cunningham

  So how much am I projecting my own self doubt on others? Right?

  Jim Coan

  Indeed. Indeed. Yeah. It's a good question. We should all be asking ourselves in academia.

  Wil Cunningham

  Analysis.

  Jim Coan

  Because we're all pretty... Yeah, analysis is back. Maybe you should go and some. Anyway. So you got into Yale?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  That's pretty spectacular. That's a very... that's an achievement.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah. It was a fantastic time. It was really great group of graduate students there.

  Jim Coan

  You were there with, as I've just learned, you were there with Brian Nosek.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yep.

  Jim Coan

  And Bethany Teachman. And didn't you have, like share an office with with Brian? And who else was was...

  Wil Cunningham

  Greg Walton was in that room.

  Jim Coan

  Greg Walton and?

  Wil Cunningham

  Tony Freitas. Oh, my God. It just seems like- Jack Laser was there, Dasgupta. And the funny thing is like, I feel terrible because like, I'm now neglect- for all of you very famous people who I'm neglecting, I apologize. I just have like Jim staring me down, which is of course affecting my memory. So this has nothing to do with you. It's all Jim.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. As usual. Wow. So what did you do in graduate school? So you had a master's already did any of that count towards your graduate?

  Wil Cunningham

  Thank God not.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, right? How many years were you in?

  Wil Cunningham

  So I did Yale for four years. Two years at William and Mary. So a total of 6.

  Jim Coan

  Great! 4 years though. Jesus.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, I think it's really kind of funny that all these people like want to get ahead, right? They want stuff to count.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. I took seven years.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, like why leave grad school early?

  Jim Coan

  Oh, God. If there weren't institutional prohibitions, I would recommend everybody. I mean, it is the best state of affairs. Possibly postdoc is better, but I'm not sure about that.

  Wil Cunningham

  Postdocs are freaking out about the job a little bit.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, that's right.

  Wil Cunningham

  Like grads, you have to worry about that. You get to still like, be handheld when you need to be handheld. No one expect anything of you at some level and you can just like...

  Jim Coan

  But also the process of learning about yourself and your interests. And you know, waking up to all of these multiple, I would I would call them elegances. You know, classical test theory and item response theory.

  Wil Cunningham

  Everything is mind blowing.

  Jim Coan

  Everything is just incredible. You know, the MTMM and the devices. When John Allen and I talked about how, you know, both of us had the same experience of learning about physiology, partly through seeing the amplifiers in sort of the way that a teenage boy sees a muscle car. You know, and like it just I want to use that. I want to mess with that. You know, and all of that stuff is happening at the same time.

  Wil Cunningham

  You take screwdrivers or dissecting things. Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. I still do that.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, grad school is amazing, right? So like, I show up. I remember on the very first day of orientation, right? Because they have this thing where all the faculty kinda like, give a little like spiel right about what they do.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  And there's like Liz Phelps. Right? And she's like, Check this out. It's a picture of inside the brain. You guess what's this thing here? It's the amygdala. I can look at the amygdala inside the brain.

  Jim Coan

  This is like what, 95, 96?

  Wil Cunningham

  97 I think. 97 to 98.

  Jim Coan

  Uh huh.

  Wil Cunningham

  And you're just like, Wait, woah. You can look inside a brain?

  Jim Coan

  I know, man, I had that. I can't remember. I just would shit my pants. I knew about autonomic physiology. I knew about EEG. And I knew that there were these things called MRI machines and they could take an image but when I learned that they could take an image of your brain doing a thing. Yeah, I completely lost my shit.

  Wil Cunningham

  I sat- I just remember just kind of being in awe for just like her entire presentation.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  And like, probably like...

  Jim Coan

  Good person to introduce you to it too.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

  Jim Coan

  Infectious.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yes. And talking about the same types of variables. Right, she's talking about, you know, automatic threat responses.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  And unconscious learning and looking at the neural mechanisms that might give- and I was like, Clearly I have to do that.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. So did you start doing that in grad school?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yes, I was working with Mahzarin and Liz. First doing... so I actually most of my first papers are actually with Liz.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  And Mahzarin of course too.

  Jim Coan

  Of course. Yeah. I guess I think in terms of content I typically associated with, you might say, with Mahzarin.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah. So well, I mean, Mahzarin was very heavily involved of course with that. But when Liz left is when Marcia Johnson came. Which is funny, because...

  Jim Coan

  Bringing in the memory piece.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, what's funny about that is most of us don't realize how many emotion researchers were actually trained by Marcia.

  Jim Coan

  Interesting.

  Wil Cunningham

  Liz Phelps. Is a Marcia Johnsonist.

  Jim Coan

  I had no idea. I had no idea of that.

  Wil Cunningham

  So that actually makes Liz my mom and my sister.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. As soon as this is over, I'm gonna get her on the phone. And I'm gonna tell her that you said that she was your mom and your sister at the same time. She'd probably liked that.

  Wil Cunningham

  So, yeah. When Marcia came, I ended up being fully co supervised by you know, Marcia and Mahzarin.

  Jim Coan

  Marcia Johnson, Mahzarin Banaji, and Liz Phelps

  Wil Cunningham

  A little bit of Liz Phelps. That's not a bad combination.

  Jim Coan

  That's a freaking unbelievable combination, dude.

  Wil Cunningham

  And I think so much of life-

  Jim Coan

  What are you talking about?

  Wil Cunningham

  It's amazing. No, I mean how much of life is I think, recognizing opportunities when they fall in your lap?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right. I this point like 99% of success is like, realizing that something is falling in your lap and it's pretty magical.

  Jim Coan

  So you go in, but you go in with this- I mean, one of the things I've kind of lost track of, so you started out with his interest in computing and chemistry. But you kept doing computing, you kept on...

  Wil Cunningham

  A little bit.

  Jim Coan

  Doing some programming.

  Wil Cunningham

  I mean, not as much as I wish I had. I feel like everything I learned back there is entirely useless. I'm actually reteaching myself, because the things that they can do now.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, you can. But that's what-

  Wil Cunningham

  I'm trying to pick it up again.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. So you've got some competing. You're clearly good at math. So you can handle the stats. And then you blend that with this new tool that you're learning and these great, influential minds.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  And you are... that is a very, very...

  Wil Cunningham

  It's been a fantastic

  Jim Coan

  That's a fine combination. So what kind of questions were you asking at that time?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, it's funny. It's always been about how the unconscious mind shapes the conscious mind.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, right.

  Wil Cunningham

  I've always been interested at the link.

  Jim Coan

  when they match and when the mismatch and all of these kinds of things that I know about your work then.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah. So I mean, I think I've always been interested in like the fact that consciousness is the end product of a lot of stuff.

  Jim Coan

  Is it like a readout? Does it says it sit on top as an epiphenomenon? Or is it, does it have some kind of causal?

  Wil Cunningham

  That's a great question.

  Jim Coan

  Right?

  Wil Cunningham

  I know, because at one level, you can simply say it's epiphenomenal. But another level is we know categories are meaningful. Like once you've labeled something...

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, but that doesn't really solve the problem of epiphenomenon.

  Wil Cunningham

  I have trouble thinking that consciousness is only epiphenomenal.

  Jim Coan

  Me too. In fact, I just refuse to believe that somehow in a very tautological fashion.

  Wil Cunningham

  I believe it's like the last bit of magic we kind of have in some sense. So please don't take that away.

  Jim Coan

  I get that.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah. No, actually, obviously, you know, me well enough if you take it away it's gone. Curse you slightly. But I think that is this frontier. And it's amazing how we just like we just attribute magic properties to it. Like, all these dual process models, right? We have the automatic stuff and then we have the magic homunculus that I decide to do something else.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right? And I just think consciousness is like, the most important thing in a sense, but I don't even know how one would study it. It's such...

  Jim Coan

  It's the most important thing and the most fraught thing. Not only from a theoretical psychological perspective, but from a personal one.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  You know, what is going to happen to me?

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  My eye, where is it gonna go?

  Wil Cunningham

  So we'reare we gonna discuss whether there's an eye or not?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. See? Right. So that's, but I think that's why everyone, including most neuroscientists that I talked to are, at the end of the day... At the end of the day, it's not about do you want to believe in ESP? Do you think there's a God? Is there a you? Is there a self rightthat-

  Wil Cunningham

  That is causal.

  Jim Coan

  That's causal. Right. And that gets to questions of freewill and then pretty soon, you're just like, It's time to drink.

  Wil Cunningham

  I know, which we are doing later.

  Jim Coan

  Yes. Because you will have had this conversation.

  Wil Cunningham

  And it will probably continue in more depth. But yeah, so I think that that's why I'm slightly interested in linking the things that we think of as being unconscious-conscious.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right? Because it's... Strangely, my interest in the unconscious, helps me understand what the consciousness is.

  Jim Coan

  At least in terms of contents.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yes. Contents. Like, at least the stuffs coming from somewhere.

  Jim Coan

  Yep. Yep.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  And it's interesting. I never actually quite thought about the fact that this all goes back to Johnson like accidentally giving a lecture on Freud.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Sorry, John.

  Jim Coan

  There's so many interesting things in your story. But the, you know, that these little points.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  It could have been this way could have been that way, the book you picked up, you know, reading,

  Wil Cunningham

  But that's all of life, isn't it?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. Well.

  Wil Cunningham

  Like it's life is full of opportunities. Like I-

  Jim Coan

  You know, I don't know. I mean, you know, you said that test said you're going to be a psychologist and professor. My mom gave me this box of old crap from high school. And as a junior in high school in one of my English classes or something, we had to make a little speech about what we were going to do when we got older. I had no- I have no memory of this whatsoever. And I look out and in my little essay that I wrote, is in there, and it's, I'm going to be a psychologist.

  Wil Cunningham

  That's fantastic.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. And then it talks about, you know, all the different branches of psychology, different areas and on and on. And I have no memory of that at all. Where did that- how does that- is that just pure coincidence? I don't know.

  Wil Cunningham

  And how old were you for that?

  Jim Coan

  Probably 15.

  Wil Cunningham

  I guess you would notice what a psychologist was at that point.

  Jim Coan

  No, I went to the library and yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Now the thing is, I can see that. You ask people a lot- I mean come on, think what we're doing right now.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  And you're bringing in people to ask questions.

  Jim Coan

  I've been doing this approximately, since I was seven or eight. I don't know why. It's a compulsion to... I am chatty. But the... so you're doing these. You're sort of probing the contents of the unconscious brain?Mind? Brain-mind.

  Wil Cunningham

  Same thing.

  Jim Coan

  Brain slash mind. And looking at how it's associated with conscious processing. Would you say, deliberate? Would you say the conscious equates to deliberate or effortful processing?

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, geez, let's say that- The funny thing is that, I think this is where we probably end up with this dualistic thinking.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right. We have the Category A is this this this this and Category B is the opposite of you know, that list. The answer to the question probably really depends really on domain, right? Because I think like what is effort? What is deliberation? Right?

  Jim Coan

  Effort is one of the obsessions of my life.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  What is effort?

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, what's deliberation? It's just time on task?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  Or this subjective feeling of doing it deliberately?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, I mean, it seems like as soon as you start invoking these terms, in a non-

  Jim Coan

  They may be fictions. Right? Skinner might have been right about those at least.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, maybe. Or I mean, these are kind of computations, right? That happen that we ascribe some degree of homuncular, right, agency to.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  But it's interesting that we have like effort, deliberation, conscious, reflective, right? Or all these controlled terms, we link them together. It's kind of just like, magical...

  Jim Coan

  Well, that's one of the things I think of.

  Wil Cunningham

  Soul that we have.

  Jim Coan

  There's all this debate about depletion.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  And it's like, you know, you keep periodically see the declarations that cognitive depletion is not a thing really. Like, well, what about fatigue?

  Wil Cunningham

  Is that the same thing?

  Jim Coan

  Well, I don't know. But certainly, they're related. Right? They must be. You know, if one thing is not real, does that mean, cognitive mental fatigue is not a thing or that, you know?

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, so my grad students sent me an article. And now this has been my third massive error of memory for today.

  Jim Coan

  Oh, good. Well keep them going.

  Wil Cunningham

  I read the abstract quite clearly and the general conclusion, like a couple of the figures and I skimmed it. So I'm about to ruin some like magical paper. If she hears that she'd be like, Read the paper first before talking about it. But it was talking about the way that we kind of store things in working memory. And if you have multiple things you have to hold in mind, right, what you can do is you can actually put these spatial temporal patterns, right. And if you have a certain amount of bandwidth, one way of holding multiple things in mind is segregating the bandwidth. Right? So you can put things into different frequency bands. Right? And it's interesting how that fits. It suddenly is a computational way of thinking about capacity.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right. Because your bandwidth is only so much.

  Jim Coan

  Right, right, right.

  Wil Cunningham

  And you can only fracture bandwidth so much.

  Jim Coan

  So much until everything drops below, maybe some kind of threshold of function.

  Wil Cunningham

  You null your criticality anymore, right?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  But if you're only doing one thing and you're using the whole bandwidth for one thing, right? So it's telling us I think things like depletion, right.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  He said, think about depletion, and fatigue, and all these things. And rather than using these words, what if we start talking about the way that we parse bandwith?

  Jim Coan

  Have you ever read anything by Arne Dietrich?

  Wil Cunningham

  No.

  Jim Coan

  He has this whole thing about like, pre-front- was it transient hypofrontality. Which is why we enjoy running and doing sportsy things because it makes our prefrontal cortex stop working and that's awesome. But he also talks about just what you said, you know, the sort of how many times can you divide...

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  What the what the resource is capable of doing before all of its capabilities. And that maybe the subjective experience of things like effort is just, it's just like a code.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  It's like an output code. A signal that you're splitting too fine.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, I think if you think about, like, all of cognition as been just patterns. Right?

  Jim Coan

  Right.

  Wil Cunningham

  Neural patterns. The more- And the way you split the bandwidth, the less, you know, the fewer bits you actually have for any particular thought.

  Jim Coan

  And you fold in Marcus Raichle's stuff about, you know, the sort of the relative constancy of metabolic activity.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right.

  Jim Coan

  And you know, it's not like you can suck up more blood and glucose when you're thinking harder. You can't do that. It's all sort of- the resource is what it's going to be. So what you do with it, how you parse it, how you divvy it up is... that's the name of the game. It's not whether you can get more because you can't.

  Wil Cunningham

  So doing that. Is that controls that effort? Is that deliberation?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  All of the above?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  I'm not sure. But it's something!

  Jim Coan

  So you finished up. So you were you did four years at Yale? That's it?

  Wil Cunningham

  Four and a half

  Jim Coan

  And when did Mahzarin go to Harvard?

  Wil Cunningham

  The end of my second year, I think?

  Jim Coan

  The end of your second year?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  And that's when you started...

  Wil Cunningham

  Doing like crazy driving back and forth.

  Jim Coan

  You drove back and forth to Har- Then you would actually- Did you have a place to live in both places?

  Wil Cunningham

  My brother lived south of Boston. So I used to just be able to take the train.

  Jim Coan

  So you take the train up from New Haven...

  Wil Cunningham

  Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Actually, he didn't live in-

  Jim Coan

  Woonsocket?

  Wil Cunningham

  He actually lived in a town just north. It was actually Massachusetts, but I just love Woonsocket.

  Jim Coan

  Woonsocket.

  Wil Cunningham

  Woon.

  Jim Coan

  Woon!

  Wil Cunningham

  Or something now and apologize to all people from Woonsocket.

  Jim Coan

  I thought it was womb socket. I was like, can you say that in public? Holy crap.

  Wil Cunningham

  Okay, so now we are learning about your mind.

  Jim Coan

  Yes. Right. Yeah. Forget the analyst. We're gonna leave that one alone. So you do you consider yourself also a sort of product of Harvard?

  Wil Cunningham

  Somewhat.

  Jim Coan

  Do you put that on your CV? I mean, it's like your your degrees from Yale.

  Wil Cunningham

  Degree's from Yale. I have a line in there that says like exchange scholars from those few year.

  Jim Coan

  Because if you put Harvard on it, then you can make a bazillion dollars consulting to you know, private industry.

  Wil Cunningham

  I could also you know, make a billion dollars by pretending neuro marketing works.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, right. You can do that with Yale too, I think.

  Wil Cunningham

  Presumably.

  Jim Coan

  Was that just a Yale slight? I think that might have been a little.

  Wil Cunningham

  No, no, no. No, no, no, no. I chose to hear that as like Yale's good.

  Jim Coan

  Good. Good. Thank you.

  Wil Cunningham

  Like, you know, we have we don't sell our nuts.

  Jim Coan

  So that was what 2003? 2002?

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, it depends on how you count, right? Because the defense was one year and the walking was another year. So depending on whether I need to be late career or early career, I change my year of PhD.

  Jim Coan

  And did you do a postdoc right after that?

  Wil Cunningham

  I did a year and a half actually stay with Marcia Johnson.

  Jim Coan

  Okay, so at Yale. You stayed at Yale and did a year and a half postdoc. Year and a half because presumably you got a job?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yes. Well, I got a job actually... Why did I get it? Did I get it was still a PhD student?

  Jim Coan

  In 2000...

  Wil Cunningham

  I either got the job while still a PhD student or in the very beginning of the postdoc. And then I deferred. Because I know he deferred for a year.

  Jim Coan

  I did that too. So where did where did you get your first job?

  Wil Cunningham

  University of Toronto.

  Jim Coan

  University of Toronto?

  Wil Cunningham

  I loved it.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. Toronto. Such a great city.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh fan. Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  I love that city. Except too cold

  Wil Cunningham

  I go well, okay.

  Jim Coan

  It's too fucking cold I would never live there because of that.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, I was trying to convince you otherwise. But well no. Toronto's wonderful except for one month a year it goes homicidal.

  Jim Coan

  Homicidal meaning?

  Wil Cunningham

  It tries to kill you.

  Jim Coan

  It tries to kill you with the cold. .

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah or probably deliberately.

  Jim Coan

  Only one month?

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, no, no. The other months it's cold. But not like trying to actually actively kill you.

  Jim Coan

  What is that month? Is that February? February is the death month. Yeah, I remember in Madison, Wisconsin I was afraid to check my mail. Go to the mailbox because what if I slipped and hit myself? Just the snow would be accumulating in my open glassy eyeballs at the end of my driveway.

  Wil Cunningham

  I will say I was watching you guys doing your grad student recruitment this week. Right? In like beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia and like-

  Jim Coan

  It's pretty nice.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah. Although I've heard this actually unusual to be fair.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Okay. But I thought about that I was like, Wow, Toronto. This beautiful magical city that we do all of our graduate recruitment and our faculty recruitment in the homicidal month.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well then you know that you really got them.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh that's true!

  Jim Coan

  Then they've passed through the gauntlet.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, they come they come surprised that actually leaves exist.

  Jim Coan

  So you got- So what year did you start at Toronto?

  Wil Cunningham

  2004-2005?

  Jim Coan

  Right. About when I started here.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, exactly.

  Jim Coan

  Exactly the same time.

  Wil Cunningham

  I love how no numbers are actually accurate whatsoever. They all-

  Jim Coan

  It doesn't matter. Unless like there's a confidence interval.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  Around within these dates. Because you can't remember anything anyway.

  Wil Cunningham

  Exactly.

  Jim Coan

  I can't. I mean especially as I get older. I'm just useless.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, I told you that I- Did tell you I misremembered my age the other...

  Jim Coan

  You did?

  Wil Cunningham

  So I was walking into- Just because curious to see what the inside of a casino look like at midnight.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. Wait you wanted to- I'm sorry. You wanted to see what a casino look like?

  Wil Cunningham

  At midnight.

  Jim Coan

  At midnight? You never seen it before? Where were you?

  Wil Cunningham

  I was in Niagara Falls. I just thought it'd be fascinating. And so we walked in and the guy said-

  Jim Coan

  Some of us are fascinated by things like that. Yes, that's right.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, it was so interesting.

  Jim Coan

  Was it? I mean, was it one of those things where you know, there's like, no natural light and no clocks anywhere.

  Wil Cunningham

  Just doing like, almost like facial coding, right? Looking at like people's responses.

  Jim Coan

  Slack-jawed drooling.

  Wil Cunningham

  Or just like staring at like... Or like- all these people were clearly there with fake IDs, right? It was like really bimodal, the ages. But going on in they asked, How old are you? Right? Because obviously, I'm probably not 18 years old.

  Jim Coan

  How old are you?

  Wil Cunningham

  I'm 43.

  Wil Cunningham

  43 right now?

  Wil Cunningham

  But somehow, I said 34. I was going up the escalator, and was just like, Wait. No, thats not right.

  Jim Coan

  That's good. You're graying a little early, but you can pass for 34.

  Wil Cunningham

  But love somebody can just like flip the actual numbers.

  Jim Coan

  You know what? I still sometimes when I'm trying to find a date, really quickly, I say-

  Jim Coan

  And you're married. I mean...

  Jim Coan

  19 something, you know, I don't think 2000. That's still like a cognitive... Like, there's some kind of barrier. So I have to- get a little mini p3.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  And then before I say the 19

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  And then I say you know, 2005 instead of 1995 or something like that.

  Wil Cunningham

  I guess it's kind of strange to think like the 1900s.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, I know.

  Wil Cunningham

  It's like, you know...

  Jim Coan

  That's my life.

  Wil Cunningham

  Hoop and stick.

  Jim Coan

  Okay, so you're at Toronto. And what were you doing? You were continuing to do your neuroimaging work of you know, unconscious processing in emotion. Where does emotion come in? Because you know, at some point I met you with the Emotion Research Group.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, that's actually Jerry Clore and Lisa Barrett's fault.

  Jim Coan

  Okay. So how did you meet those guys? Two of our favorite people.

  Wil Cunningham

  They are wonderful, wonderful people.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Adorable both.

  Jim Coan

  I know.

  Wil Cunningham

  So I was at an SP SP conference and I was presenting in the attitudes pre conference because...

  Jim Coan

  Attitudes.

  Wil Cunningham

  That's apparently what I do.

  Jim Coan

  That's your wheelhouse.

  Wil Cunningham

  Right? And I bumped into Lisa and Jerry. And Jerry came running up to me. I guess he'd read my IR my interview riposting paper.

  Jim Coan

  Everyone has.

  Wil Cunningham

  And he was like, I love your emotion model. And Lisa was there like, Yeah, you should really come to the you know, the emotion, you know, pre conference, you know, because like, we really like your emotion model. And I said to myself like-

  Jim Coan

  What emotion model?

  Wil Cunningham

  I have an emotion model?

  Jim Coan

  No, I get it, though. I get it.

  Wil Cunningham

  And yeah, so I think that it's again, going back to my countrarian nature.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  That I ended up going to Ohio State right the next year.

  Jim Coan

  The next year. Why do you say this because your countrarian nature? Because you loved Toronto and you're like, Fuck this. I can't be in a place that I love.

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, no, no, no, no. Toronto has never been a non loved place.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  Well, it's about the field of study. So I was an attitudes researcher.

  Jim Coan

  Okay.

  Wil Cunningham

  In Yale, also in Toronto, and then went I to Ohio State because that's where attitude research happens.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  You're surrounded by like, 14,000 attitude researchers. And I was like, clearly I don't do attitude I do emotion.

  Jim Coan

  I see. So that's where you really started taking on the identity as someone who studied emotion.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, I mean, Marilynn Brewer has a great deal of like, maximal distinctiveness, right?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  It's a crowded playing field. Like-

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, well, and that's a real thing. That makes, you know, especially for... I mean, it's not just a real psychological phenomenon. It's a real thing for consideration of your career.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, no, I think that I tend to work slowly. I don't like competing with people directly. I don't like rushing. And I just like, have my own little sandbox. And I'm like, so if I ever look up and I see like, 14 people in my sandbox, like, it's time for a new sandbox.

  Jim Coan

  I totally, totally relate to that as we've talked about before. God dammit. Okay, so how did you... So you're there for?

  Wil Cunningham

  Six years.

  Jim Coan

  Six years.

  Wil Cunningham

  Toronto for two years, Ohio State for six, and now I guess back at Toronto for four or five?

  Jim Coan

  Yeah, so 11 or 12 years total, right? So, yeah, something like yeah, must have been. And yeah, you're back to Toronto.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah.

  Jim Coan

  So what happened to the pretty religious girl and William and Mary?

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, she's a faculty member elsewhere.

  Jim Coan

  Elsewhere?

  Wil Cunningham

  Yes.

  Jim Coan

  Oh, to be unnamed.

  Wil Cunningham

  To be unnamed.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. And you know, things are on track?

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, yeah.

  Jim Coan

  In the relationship domain?

  Wil Cunningham

  Oh, you're definitely going analyst here. Yeah, things are fantastic! I mean, and the way I'll frame this is as we've discussed, we lead our parallel lives.

  Jim Coan

  I know!

  Wil Cunningham

  And so what that means-

  Jim Coan

  Unbelievable.

  Wil Cunningham

  Which means if you criticize my life at all, it's gonna be a criticism of your own life.

  Jim Coan

  Which gets into many wheels within wheels of analysis now.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, this is fantastic. Because like this one of those great things where like, you know, we're obviously gonna go into this and we're just gonna leave this as like this. Like what's this mysterious...

  Jim Coan

  We've had our relationship issues haven't we?

  Wil Cunningham

  We have.

  Jim Coan

  We sure have.

  Wil Cunningham

  And I believe your life is pretty fantastic now aswell.

  Jim Coan

  Yes, it is. Yeah.

  Wil Cunningham

  So like yeah, so no ... wonder like, What's with Wil and Jim what going on there?

  Jim Coan

  I tell people that Wil Cunningham is my, was my karmic doppelganger. Yeah, in many ways. Although I missed out on Yale and Harvard, I didn't get to do that. Well, but with everything else, we've basically done the same stuff. Right down to playing the bass guitar we learned.

  Wil Cunningham

  That's right.

  Jim Coan

  It's ridiculous.

  Wil Cunningham

  Yeah, we pretty much have like the identical partners now.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. Yeah. It's just It's insane.

  Wil Cunningham

  It is super insane.

  Jim Coan

  Yeah. Man. All right. Well, I think we're gonna wrap it up. That's awesome time. Thanks.

  Wil Cunningham

  Fantastic.

  Jim Coan

  Thanks for talking with me.

  Wil Cunningham

  Awesome. Good seeing you.

  Jim Coan

  Shut that one down.

  Wil Cunningham

  I love these whole like goodbyes. When we're gonna like you know, hang out for the rest of the evening.

  Jim Coan

  We're gonna hang out. Yeah, I know. Let's go drink.

  Wil Cunningham

  Exactly.

  Jim Coan

  Okay, bye bye.

  Jim Coan

  Okay, that's it. That's enough of that. Thanks to my buddy and my my sort of karmic doppelganger Wil Cunningham for being such a sport and for keeping me on my toes man during that one. I can't wait to do that again. And you know, I might just give him a call right after recording this, right now, because I can. And I kind of want to. He'll probably pick right up and tell me he can't talk right now. But then I'll you know, I'll call him later and it'll all be good. Anyway, dear listeners the music on Circle of Willis is written by Tom Stouffer and Jean Ruli and performed by their band the New Drakes. For information about how to purchase their music, check out the about page at Circle of Willis podcast.com. And don't forget that the Circle of Willis is brought to you by VQR and the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia. And, that the Circle of Willis is a member of the TEEJ FM network. You can find out more about that @teej.fm. And if you liked this podcast, how about giving us a little review down there at old, you know, at iTunes and letting us know how we're doing. It's super easy. And we like it, we do. Or you can send us an email by going to Circle of Willis podcast.com and clicking on the contact tab. It's pretty easy too. And we'd love to hear from you. If you have any reactions to what we've been talking about. Anything that bothered you. Anything you just want to say, you know, give us a verbal high five would just do it. In any case, I'll see you all at Episode Five, where I talk with Lisa Feldman Barrett of Northeastern University, about her view of emotion. A view that has caused a lot of us to completely rethink what we thought we understood. Until then. Bye bye.