BJKS Podcast

14. Tessa Rusch: COVID-Dynamic, an extremely variable year, and theory of mind

April 02, 2021
BJKS Podcast
14. Tessa Rusch: COVID-Dynamic, an extremely variable year, and theory of mind
Show Notes Chapter Markers

Tessa Rusch is a postdoc working on computational modelling of social interactions at Caltech in the labs of Ralph Adolphs and John O'Doherty. She is also part of COVID-Dynamic project, a large-scale longitudinal study on the psychological effects of the COVID pandemic.  

In this conversation, we talk about Tessa's experiences of being part of such a large project, about her move to the US just before the pandemic, and about her review on computational models and bevioural tasks of Theory of Mind.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. New conversations every other Friday. You can find the podcast on all podcasting platforms (e.g., Spotify, Apple/Google Podcasts, etc.).

Timestamps
0:00:04: Before Tessa's PhD
0:04:07: Tessa's first year in the US, during the pandemic
0:16:51: Tessa's original plan for her postdoc with Ralph Adolphs and John O'Doherty 
0:24:22: How COVID-Dynamic got started
0:32:42: The practicalities of running a large collaborative study
0:43:37: Social changes during an extremely variable time
0:55:03: Working with complex data sets
1:14:02: Doing COVID research while working on other projects
1:20:48: Discussing Tessa's review article about Theory of Mind from Neuropsychologia
1:47:27: Tessa's final words of wisdom

Podcast links

Tessa's links

Ben's links


References
Kuper-Smith, B. J., Doppelhofer, L. M., Oganian, Y., Rosenblau, G., & Korn, C. (2020). Optimistic beliefs about the personal impact of COVID-19. PsyArXiv.
Post, T., Van den Assem, M. J., Baltussen, G., & Thaler, R. H. (2008). Deal or no deal? decision making under risk in a large-payoff game show. American Economic Review.
Rusch, T., Han, Y., Liang, D., Hopkins, A., Lawrence, C., Maoz, U., ... & Stanley, D. (2021). COVID-Dynamic: A large-scale multifaceted longitudinal study of socioemotional and behavioral change across the pandemic. PsyArXiv.
Rusch, T., Steixner-Kumar, S., Doshi, P., Spezio, M., & Gläscher, J. (2020). Theory of mind and decision science: towards a typology of tasks and computational models. Neuropsychologia.
van Baar, J. M., Chang, L. J., & Sanfey, A. G. (2019). The computational and neural substrates of moral strategies in social decision-making. Nature communications.
Van den Assem, M. J., Van Dolder, D., & Thaler, R. H. (2012). Split or steal? Cooperative behavior when the stakes are large. Management Science.

Before Tessa's PhD
Tessa's first year in the US, during the pandemic
Tessa's original plan for her postdoc with Ralph Adolphs and John O'Doherty
How COVID-Dynamic got started
The practicalities of running a large collaborative study
Social changes during an extremely variable time
Working with complex data sets
Doing COVID research while working on other projects
Discussing Tessa's review article about Theory of Mind from Neuropsychologia
Tessa's final words of wisdom