Latest News

matan rubin

Comparing the value of perceived humanversus AI-generated empathy

16 July, 2025

new paper published in Nature Human Behaviour by Matan Rubin, Prof. Anat Perry, and colleagues, explores whether empathic responses are perceived differently when attributed to a human versus artificial intelligence.

Across nine studies with over 6,000 participants, the researchers found that identically generated empathic messages were rated as more empathic, supportive, and authentic when thought to come from a human.

oded leshem

Congratulation to Dr. Oded Adomi Leshem

2 July, 2025

Who won ISPP’s 2025 David O. Sears Best Book Award for his book "Hope Amidst Conflict: Philosophical and Psychological Explorations," Published by Oxford University Press.

Leshem is a senior researcher at the PICR lab and the founder of the new International Hub for Hope Research.

David O. Sears Best Book on Mass Politics Award

Amir Tal

Welcome Dr. Amir Tal

24 June, 2025

The Department of Psychology is excited to welcome Dr. Amir Tal, a new faculty member joining the department in collaboration with the Department of Cognitive Science and the Brain. Amir will join us in the upcoming academic year (2025–2026) and will lead the Computational Psychology cluster.

More

Filter News by Month

Musicality was not selected for, rather humans have a good reason to learn music

4 October, 2021
Musicality was not selected for, rather humans have a good reason to learn music

Did musicality evolve to promote sociality? This idea relies on the assumption that sociality, in itself, was selected for in evolution as an inborn faculty. However, in contrary to a cumbersome evolutionary solution implementing inborn faculties, the brain could have evolved with one ultimate feature: to be able to wire ad hoc to the environment, optimizing survival in any cultural nice. Such an evolutionary plan is sufficient to ensure the acquisition of profound human characteristics through learning if they are relevant for survival, including (but not limited to) sociality (Atzil et al., 2018) and musicality.

See full article here