How can you communicate science with comics? SciCom-Special #6 with Dr. Sophie Elschner.

Introduction to Kaleidoscience

0:00Hi, and welcome to Kaleidoscience. You are listening to our winter special, where we are taking a look at science communication. During December, we'll have special episodes on Sundays, where we talk to fellow science communicators about their medium and experience. In January, we'll go back to our schedule and we will take a look at the research behind science communication. This episode is hosted by Imogen Hüsing and Elisa Palme. So sit back, relax and enjoy this week's episode.

0:32As you will have noticed, there wasn't a regular upload last week and there won't be one this week. We are currently enjoying a little winter break until the 15th of January. Even though there are no regular episodes, we are still working on our winter special, where we talk to fellow science communicators. So please enjoy those episodes until our regular scheduled program is back.

Guest Introduction

0:57Sometimes a picture speaks more than a thousand words. Sophie leverages this in her comics about psychology, cognitive and neurosciences. With Psychosoph, she creates small comic strips explaining topics ranging from why we're yawning to what the IKEA effect is. The person behind these comic strips is Dr. Sophie Elchner. She did her PhD at Konstanz University on Empirical Aesthetics, Processing Fluency, Papiometry and Eye Tracking. Currently, she's working as a press, online and social media editor at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité.

1:33Welcome and thank you so much for joining us. Hello, thanks for inviting me. And as always, we play our get to know game at the beginning for our special episodes only with three sentences. And our first sentence is, as a kid, I always wanted to be. Oh, a teacher. A teacher for a specific subject or just in general teaching. Yeah, just in general. Nice.

1:59Our second sentence. Currently, I'm most fascinated by. Ooh, space. I like learning about the planets and the stars. Nice. How did you come across space as topic? Probably because I'm a huge sci-fi nerd. So I'm also learning about the science. Nice. And our last sentence. If I was an emoji, I would be.

2:30Ooh, that's a big question. Probably this monocle emoji. Yeah. I think that fits. Because you use it most often or because you identify as it most likely? It's something that looks at stuff in detail. So this is what I do with the comic, I guess. So I guess it fits. Yeah. For some reason, it's one of the emojis I use really, really seldomly.

3:05Because I always feel like it looks a bit skeptical and judgy. That's true. That's true, actually. Yeah. It's also not an emoji I use often. I think the one that I use most often is the one that's upside down. Because it can convey so many things. But I don't think it's... Yeah, maybe that's also a good representation of me. Because sometimes you can indicate that you mean something like in a funny way or not exactly truthful to the sentence you just wrote.

3:36So yeah, that could also fit. Yeah, it's a good sarcasm emoji, I guess. Absolutely. But I feel like also the skeptical aspect of the monocle emoji is a really good trait to have as a science communicator, like to always second guess information and find out where sources come from and so on, and then communicate it further with a good grounding in literature and so on. Yes.

Psychosoph Comics

4:07Okay, so should we go right into your science communication? Can you tell us a bit more about your comics and Psychosurf? Yes, Psychosurf is a comic about psychology, cognitive and neuroscience. So what I want to do with it is show how diverse psychology can be and how the science is done, right? So in a lot of cases, when you look at psychology communication, it's often from clinical psychology.

4:38So lots of stuff about anxiety or depression or schizophrenia. And these are very, very important topics. I think we should communicate them more. But sometimes, you know, other topics from psychology come very short. Like, lots of people, for example, don't know that as a psychologist, you can work in engineering and the human-machine interaction area, for example, or there's a lot of basic science and psychology.

5:12So what I want to do is show a balanced picture of what the field can do, right? Yeah, and of course, to educate people about also misconceptions that exist around psychology. I think it's one of the science fields where there's a lot of misinformation and disinformation and also a lot of, you know, esoterics.

5:42So one of the reasons I do this comic is to show that psychology is a real science and that there is a lot of, like, grit to it, right? Yeah. And what brought you to making comics specifically?

6:02I've been drawing comics since I was, I think, 11 years old. So for over 25 years now. And I started out as somebody who really, really loved science YouTube. And I wanted to do science communication myself because I was really impressed by channels like SciShow and Be Smart, stuff like that. But I didn't know how to operate a camera, right, at that point.

6:34And I wanted to do something that's higher quality. So I thought, OK, I can draw. And then a science comic was the way to go, I guess.

6:45When did you start the Psychosoph comics? I think I started them in 2021. I had just gotten funding for it by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie, the German Psychological Association. And once it was clear I could start financially, it was clear I had to do the project, right? So, but the concepts, first concepts for them existed for in, I think, 2018 already.

7:18So it took me a long time to actually start it. So from the timeline, yeah, you had the concepts, you applied for funding. And then when the project started, you started working or publishing the strips. Yes, correct. Did you or do you, maybe in general, do you draw them digitally or on paper and then scan them? Okay, both. The sketches and the pre-drawings, the underdrawings, are done on paper because paper is more natural to me.

7:53But the end result is done in Adobe Illustrator, actually, as vector graphics. So because actually when I worked on the concept, I tried to draw the comic with Copic markers and I scanned them and I realized if I wanted to have a successful webcomic, this wouldn't go, right? It needed to be digital. It just didn't look aesthetic in a way that people would come back to it. So I decided to learn how to draw digitally for it.

8:29And I think that was a good decision because it's easy to use. I can actually take some of the illustrations and reuse them to print them, for example, on a, I have a cotton bag where I printed one of the drawings on that I use privately. Thank you. And it's easy to change the size. So, yeah, it's both, basically.

8:59You've already mentioned that you do paper first and then the digital version.

Comic Creation Process

9:05How's your usual process when you do a comic? So how do you get from an idea to the actual end result?

9:13First, I decide on which topic to make a comic on. And that can be because I was personally interested in or if I, the comic on yawning, for example, exists because I heard in a podcast that some scientists think that we cool our brain by yawning. And I was like, that can't be. That's a crazy idea. Why would everyone, anyone think that, right? And then I looked it up and there's actually a lot of science on this.

9:45So I was really interested in getting into all the theories that exist on this. And just so everyone is on the same page, there's data for and against it. So I don't think it's correct, but there are other theories and we generally, we don't know why we yawn yet. So, but sometimes I can get hung up on something like this or I just want to teach people on a science literacy level, for example.

10:19That's why the comic about the empirical paper exists, right? Because I want to make it easier for people to understand how science works. Back when we, back when the pandemic started, I just noticed that a lot of people were not understanding where the data came from, that really big political decisions were made on, or that they didn't understand why certain vaccinations were made faster or slower, right?

10:51So it's really important to show people how the science is done. And when I've decided on a topic, I will usually read a couple of papers. And my approach to this is really as if I was writing the introduction for a scientific paper. So I'm actually, usually I cite about 15 papers per longer comic. And sometimes I read even 20 to 25. So I, that I really understand the topic, right?

11:24And when that's done, I write a script, which is usually a dialogue between the character that represents me and the character that represents the audience. And when that is done, I start with the sketches. So I have a little, little small sketchbook where I just sketch out the general framing of the page. And when that's done, I do the actual pre-drawings and then I scan it and then I do all the graphics work in Illustrator.

12:00And during all that process, I, again and again, shorten the text. I try to find phrasing that is simpler so that I still communicate the same thing, but in a really, really easy to read way. And of course, because speech bubbles aren't that big, you always have to take care that the text isn't too long, right? And that's a really, that's, I think, the biggest process I have, like making it simpler, trying to find a way to be resourceful with the text, basically.

12:37And then I do all the social media work around it, like creating all the posts, maybe editing videos that I may have recorded while drawing it on the PC. And yeah, it's a lot of work.

12:54I can imagine, can you estimate how long it takes you to work on one comic strip? It's a bit difficult to estimate because I work on it in my spare time in the evening. So I can't say I would be done in the week if I would just work on it continuously. But usually I would say probably 40, 50 hours per comic, maybe even more. If it's a long one, if it's a short one, like my short format has just one A4 page.

13:28That's a bit, of course, a bit faster because I only read one, two, three papers for it. And then it's fairly quick. But the longer ones take a lot of time, probably more than 50, 60 hours. I should, I should keep the time next time and see how long it actually takes me.

13:53Do you work on one comic in one go or do you do it over multiple days while also doing other things in between? Because, yeah, I think it's not feasible to do it in one sitting, even on a couple of days. No, no. Usually if it's a work day, because I'm fully employed in my other job, I may sit on it in the evening for an hour until my energy runs out. But that's also a bit of a problem if you do this in your spare time, right? And on the weekend, I spend a little bit more time.

14:26I like to go to the library and work there for three to four hours. And I usually work on multiple things at the same time. Like at the moment, I've just finished reading the papers for the next comic. In the meanwhile, I have published one of the newsletters for the comic with a different topic. And I've also worked on editing some videos that I will have to upload on YouTube and Instagram in some while.

14:59So it's not that I'm working on one thing linearly. I also have some topics already half finished in the script and some not. So, yeah, sometimes it helps when you're stuck with one topic to work on a different one, right? Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

15:18Is there anything you like the most about doing B-Comics?

15:24Lots of things are fun. I like the coloring process a lot because it's quick.

15:33The lines take a lot of time, right? That's a lot of fun. And coming up with creative ideas to represent psychology topics. Like psychology isn't like physics, right? Where you have like pictures of atoms or in astrophysics, you can draw stars and planets. You can't do that with psychology because the ideas are abstract, right? So you have to be really creative with how you present things.

16:05And I think I have a lot of improvement to do in that area as well. So, yeah, going to try in the future to become more creative with it. What is the most challenging aspect of working or creating the comics? It's probably the shortening part, like making it really easier to understand and making the text efficient. But it's also finding the time and energy to work on it.

16:36And I'm going to be very honest here because, as I said, I do this in my spare time.

16:43And there are days where I'm just too tired from work to work on it. Or days where I'm like, no, I want to go out with a friend, of course. Or where I want to drink a nice tea or hot chocolate in front of the TV, right? But I try to work on it continuously so that even, you know, the thing is when you work on something this big, it can start to look like a real big mountain of work to do, right?

17:15But if you work on it like half an hour a day, this mountain slowly erodes into a finished comic. So I try my best to stay continuous on it. And I think it's always like this when you have a project that when you try to do too much at once that you get overwhelmed quite easily and just also lose the fun part of it just because you just see the work and not the breaks and the good in between. Yeah, that's absolutely true. I've had moments with Plexos where I was like, oh, this is stressing me out so much.

17:49And usually it helps to take a break and take it easy and break it up in little steps then, right? And this happens with every passion project, I believe. Yeah. I think that's something we can relate to as well. I mean, yeah. Yeah.

Learning from Science Communication

18:10What is the most interesting thing that you learned during science communication and especially the comics? Do you mean like facts-wise or like process-wise about doing science communication? If you have one for both, then you can give us both. Yeah. Well, the most interesting part I've found out is that there are sometimes really crazy theories, as I said in the beginning with the yawning, that actually have merit or merit in the sense that scientists are actually seriously working on them, right?

18:47It doesn't mean that these theories are correct, but stuff like this cooling hypothesis with yawning or the snake detection hypothesis, which says that we are immediately able to spot snakes because they're scary and dangerous, right? I don't know what the status on this is, though. I would have to look this up. But I came across this when I was researching something else and I was like, what the fuck is this?

19:19Never heard about it, but apparently there's some research on it, right? And process-wise, it's actually what a very good and open-minded community we have around science communication, right? It's really, really fun to go on conferences and talk to people about this. I also spend a lot of time doing one-on-ones in Zoom with people from the community. And it's mostly very warm and very helpful and we support each other and we collaborate with each other, right?

19:56This is really awesome.

19:59I think we have experienced that now as well a lot with this winter special because we talked to so many really, really great people in the community. They were all really lovely. Yeah, very approachable also, right? Yeah. I think so, too. Something that just came to my mind when you also talked about the yawning and the snake theory, et cetera, is how do you personally deal with science where there are a lot of different approaches, a lot of different also results and even results that are really contradicted because that does happen in science.

20:38And often there are research lines where people try or work on something until it's definitely proven wrong, which is good in science. But this also leads to many different strengths to get together. So how do you decide on what to follow, how to deal with differences, how to communicate something that is clear enough, but also simple enough to understand? Yes. Well, the first thing I look at is how much science has actually been done on it, because if it's a somewhat weird theory like the ones that I just talked about, you have to be really careful not to communicate something that's really quack, right?

21:21But if there is a lot of research on it, surprisingly, then I would actually communicate the controversy, right? But give it as much weight as it is in the science. So don't do this 50-50 thing like lots of media outlets do with climate change, for example, where there's a technical term for it that I'm missing right now, but they present the fact that climate change exists as 50% weight and some climate science denier as 50%.

22:01And that's not what it is in science, right? I think last number I saw is that 97% of scientists believe that climate change is human-made and real, right? So that's the consensus, and you should communicate it that way, right? In this case, I would actually probably also say maybe don't communicate the denial anymore, because it's so clear that it's not necessary. But if it's something that is still controversially discussed, you can trust that your audience is smart enough to follow the conversation.

22:36And this is also what I've done, for example, in the comic about the visual cliff, where there are lots of ideas and theories about how to use this experimental paradigm. What is done with the visual cliff is it's basically a table with a checkerboard that goes down into a cliff, and there's a glass plate on it. So when you place a baby on top, the baby can just crawl over it.

23:09And then researchers look at, are they scared to crawl over the part that drops down? Does this change when their mother or their father encourage them to crawl over it? Does this have to do with depth perception? Does this have to do with emotions or anxiety, right? And there have been a lot of attempts at using this paradigm for these different things. And of course, there are some controversies then around that, right? And I try to communicate this honestly in the comics, because I think it's really, really important in a science literacy sense to make people understand that science isn't truth or false.

23:52It's, it's, it's, it's, it's a probability, right? That there is data that supports the hypothesis, there is data that may not support it, then you have to look at in what context does the data support the hypothesis and what does it not? And then see, has it been replicated? So has a different lab done the same experiment again, and seen that the results are the same or different, and then look at the consensus, right?

24:23Because there are always contexts in which either the experiment wasn't done cleanly, or there are some, some contexts in which the, I mean, the people now in psychology, people are the subject, right? That they behave differently, for example. So this is also one of my goals with psychosoph, to be honest about how science works, right?

24:55Yeah.

24:57Do you consume science or communicated science outside of your own science communication? Yes. Um, I follow lots of, um, outlets, um, on YouTube, for example, um, I really like SciShow, I like, um, BeSmart, um, I haven't watched Veritasium for a long time, but that's also good. Of course, things like, um, Kurzgesagt, or I think it's things like that, but also, um, uh, on social media, of course, there are many Instagram, um, um, formats.

25:35And I also sometimes read science communication books, though, um, those a little bit more seldomly, because at the end of the day, I'm often very tired to read. But, um, um, I, I really like to, like, find out stuff, right? Like, learn things about the world that, that I didn't know before, and this can be very fascinating, I think. Do you have a preferred format for that, or is it just general things that you find interesting?

26:10No, generally, right? Um, but there are some topics I'm especially interested in, like, um, space, medicine, stuff like that.

26:21And is there any format or communicator, um, that you want to give a shout out to that, um, our listeners should check out? Oh, there are so many, I don't know how to decide, um, uh, I'd say, um, David Spencer, for example, who does the Krautner YouTube channel, and he also did a podcast of the same name, and he's written some books, um, which are really good. Um, um, um, science and fiction, um, which, uh, uh, does science communication via, uh, short stories.

27:00We've also had an episode with Helena already. Yeah? Oh, awesome. Yes. Yeah, I, I, uh, I also did write a short story for her, so. Nice. Um, so, um, we've collaborated there, um, and I would also like to recommend, uh, uh, um, Clios Spiegel. Um, she's a science communicator from history, um, because I think our colleagues from the humanities sometimes don't get enough attention.

27:30Um, I want to shout out her as well. There's so many other people, right? Um, so, um, I'll stick with these three, but I could make a list of 500 that are really awesome. So, um, yeah, shout out to everyone that I'm connected to because you're doing amazing work.

27:51Yeah, it just speaks to the community. Yes.

27:56All right.

Conclusion and Outreach

27:57Um, before we, um, wrap up this episode, where can people find you? Um, I have a website, which is, um, psychosophcomic.de or psychosophcomic.com, if you want to read it in English. Um, I'm also active at the moment with this on Instagram, on LinkedIn, and on Blue Sky. Um, I have a YouTube channel for Psychosoph, um, where you can, uh, see some, uh, process videos of me creating the vector graphics.

28:28Um, and you can sign up on my newsletter, which publishes, um, once every quarter, where, um, I will, um, write a few texts about science topics that haven't made it into the comic, uh, with some illustrations as well. So it's still a bit visual. Um, and, um, I really recommend it because, um, sometimes at, at the moment with social media, you miss, um, posts from the people you follow, um, because of the way that the, um, uh, the timelines are now created by the websites.

29:05And with this, I will just give a summary of the news that have happened, um, between the, uh, newsletters. So you don't miss anything. Yeah. Um, yeah. Otherwise, if you want an overview about my whole portfolio, because I also do science illustration, um, on the side, uh, you can go to elchner.science, just my family name. Um, and, um, and, um, and you can get an overview about all the stuff that I have done in science communication and science illustration so far.

29:36Perfect. We will link everything in the show notes so people can find it easily. Thank you. Yeah. And with that, I think, uh, we can wrap up this episode. Thank you so much for joining us today. It was really, really fun and interesting episode. Thank you for inviting me. It was really amazing to talk to you. Thank you so much. You too. Bye. This was Kaleidoscience. We hope that you enjoyed this episode and we would love to have your feedback. You can rate our podcast and give us feedback on our Instagram account.

30:09Have a great week and you'll hear from us again in two weeks. This episode was hosted by Imogen Hüsing and Elisa Palme. Produced by Imogen Hüsing, Clara Kühne, Sophie Kühne, Sönke Lühl and Elisa Palme. The music is from Jan-Lukas Schröder and the logo is from Annika Richter.