Avishai Henik is an Israeli neurocognitive psychologist who works at
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) ( he, אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב, ''Universitat Ben-Guriyon baNegev'') is a public research university in Beersheba, Israel. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has five campuses: the ...
(BGU). Henik studies voluntary and automatic (non-voluntary/reflexive) processes involved in cognitive operations. He characterizes automatic processes (in various areas of research), and clarifies their importance, the relationship between automatic and voluntary processes, and their neural underpinnings. Most of his work involves research with human participants and in recent years, he has been working with
Archer fish
The archerfish (spinner fish or archer fish) form a monotypic family, Toxotidae, of fish known for their habit of preying on land-based insects and other small animals by shooting them down with water droplets from their specialized mouths. The ...
in order to examine evolutionary aspects of various cognitive functions.
Biography
Avishai Henik was born in Tel Aviv in 1945. He received his undergraduate degree in psychology and education from
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) ( he, אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב, ''Universitat Ben-Guriyon baNegev'') is a public research university in Beersheba, Israel. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has five campuses: the ...
in 1971. He then moved to the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
to study for his MA and PhD degrees under the supervision of Nobel Laureate
Daniel Kahneman
Daniel Kahneman (; he, דניאל כהנמן; born March 5, 1934) is an Israeli-American psychologist and economist notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, as well as behavioral economics, for which he was award ...
. He received his PhD in 1979. In 1980, Henik received a Rothschild post-doctoral fellowship and spent two years in Eugene, Oregon, in the laboratory of
Michael I. Posner, considered a leading pioneer in building the field of cognitive neuroscience, and the neuropsychology laboratory led by Michael I. Posner and Oscar S.M. Marin in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
Academic career
Henik began as a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 1979 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1984, then to associate professor in 1992 and to a full professor in 1996. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev endowed him with the Zlotowski Chair in Cognitive Neuropsychology in 1999 and a Distinguished Professor degree in 2014. He is currently continuing his research as an emeritus distinguished professor.
Academic work
Avishai Henik heads the Cognitive Neuropsychology Laboratory. His work is multidisciplinary—he studies mental operations, which serve as building blocks for a given cognitive function, as well as the brain tissues involved in these operations. His early works focused on single word processing and the
Stroop effect
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Naming the font color of a printed word is an easier and quicker task if word meaning and font color are congruent. If two words are both printed in red, the average time to say "red" in response to the written word "green" is ...
and later on
visual spatial attention Visual spatial attention is a form of visual attention that involves directing attention to a location in space. Similar to its temporal counterpart visual temporal attention, these attention modules have been widely implemented in video analytics ...
,
numerical cognition
Numerical cognition is a subdiscipline of cognitive science that studies the cognitive, developmental and neural bases of numbers and mathematics. As with many cognitive science endeavors, this is a highly interdisciplinary topic, and includes ...
,
dyscalculia
Dyscalculia () is a disability resulting in difficulty learning or comprehending arithmetic, such as difficulty in understanding numbers, learning how to manipulate numbers, performing mathematical calculations, and learning facts in mathematics. ...
, emotions, and
synesthesia
Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who re ...
. He has written over 200 articles, in addition to an edited book entitled, Continuous Issues in Numerical Cognition: How Many or How Much.
Attention
Henik started his work on attention under the supervision of
Daniel Kahneman
Daniel Kahneman (; he, דניאל כהנמן; born March 5, 1934) is an Israeli-American psychologist and economist notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, as well as behavioral economics, for which he was award ...
in the middle of the 1970s. Kahneman and Henik published two papers on selective attention, one of which has been heavily cited throughout the years. Since then, Henik studied the neurocognitive mechanisms that underlie orienting of visual-spatial attention and selective attention. Studies conducted in his laboratory and in collaboration with other researchers (e.g., Robert Rafal) documented the distinction between the involuntary-exogenous and the voluntary-endogenous attentional systems, the cortical and subcortical neural structures that subserve these systems, and developmental trajectories in attention. His studies, on patients as well as the
Archer fish
The archerfish (spinner fish or archer fish) form a monotypic family, Toxotidae, of fish known for their habit of preying on land-based insects and other small animals by shooting them down with water droplets from their specialized mouths. The ...
, documented the role of subcortical structures (e.g., superior colliculus) in
inhibition of return Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to an orientation mechanism that briefly enhances (for approximately 100–300 milliseconds (ms)) the speed and accuracy with which an object is detected after the object is attended, but then impairs detection spee ...
(IOR). His research on selective attention uses a range of tasks like the Stroop, flanker,
and the stop-signal task, which require selection and control over habitual responding. This research led Henik to study cognitive control and executive functions.
Cognitive control and emotional self-regulation
Henik's research in this area aims at understanding the development of goal-directed behavior and self-regulation. Research in his laboratory has shown that cognitive control and emotional regulation could work in top-down or bottom-up pathways. Emotions, commonly thought to involve subcortical structures (e.g.,
amygdala
The amygdala (; plural: amygdalae or amygdalas; also '; Latin from Greek, , ', 'almond', 'tonsil') is one of two almond-shaped clusters of nuclei located deep and medially within the temporal lobes of the brain's cerebrum in complex verteb ...
), can be regulated by cognitive control (that involves higher brain structures in the
cerebral cortex
The cerebral cortex, also known as the cerebral mantle, is the outer layer of neural tissue of the cerebrum of the brain in humans and other mammals. The cerebral cortex mostly consists of the six-layered neocortex, with just 10% consisting of ...
) and are affected by training. Moreover, attentional alerting (thought to involve subcortical brain structures) was found to modulate cognitive control / executive functions.
Numerical cognition
Henik studies the building blocks of numerical cognition and developmental
dyscalculia
Dyscalculia () is a disability resulting in difficulty learning or comprehending arithmetic, such as difficulty in understanding numbers, learning how to manipulate numbers, performing mathematical calculations, and learning facts in mathematics. ...
—a specific deficiency in arithmetic that is similar in nature and prevalence to
dyslexia
Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...
. Together with Joseph Tzelgov, Henik designed the
numerical Stroop task and showed (a) the intimate relationship between sizes and numbers, and (b) the fact that numerical values are processed automatically even when completely irrelevant to the task. In subsequent years, it was found that performance in the
numerical Stroop task depends on knowledge of the numerical system, involves specific brain areas (i.e., the cortical intraparietal sulcus), and is compromised in developmental dyscalculia and
acalculia
Acalculia is an acquired Disability, impairment in which people have difficulty performing simple mathematical tasks, such as adding, subtracting, multiplying and even simply stating which of two numbers is larger. Acalculia is distinguished fro ...
. In recent years Henik pointed out the importance of non-countable dimensions (e.g., which object is larger in size, how much water is in the glass) to numerical cognition. In recent publications, Henik and colleagues suggested the existence of a magnitude sense rather than a number sense, with the former based on the ability to perceive and evaluate non-countable dimensions (e.g., size). Henik and colleagues edited three books in numerical cognition. One dealt with the role of continuous dimensions, one with heterogeneity of functions involved in numerical cognition, and one with learning and education in mathematical cognition.
Synesthesia
It has been suggested that
synesthesia
Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who re ...
can serve as a window to understanding crucial issues in object perception such as feature binding, and that it documents cross-talk between supposedly separate systems (e.g., vision and audition). In studies of
synesthesia
Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who re ...
, Henik and his colleagues combined behavioral and brain imaging techniques as well as harnessed other techniques (e.g.,
hypnosis
Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologica ...
) in order to examine fundamental issues in the field.
Academic administration
Henik assumed various roles in academic administration. At BGU, he was Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, chairperson for the Department of Behavioral Sciences, and for the Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience. On a national level (Israel), he was a member of the first board of directors of FIRST (Focal Initiative in Research in Science and Technology, Bikura), founded by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF). He was also a member of the CHE (Council of Higher Education) international committee for the evaluation of accredited Psychology and Behavioral Sciences studies in Israel. On an international level, he was a member of the executive committee of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP) and the chair of the governing board of the recently establishe
Mathematical Cognition and Learning Society (MCLS)
Notable grant support
Henik was the instigator and chair of a multidisciplinary think-tank, sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of Education, whose function was to better understand the cross roads where neuroscience, cognitive science and education meet. The aim was to identify developments in the field and the ramifications for education. Henik was also supported by the ISF in the framework of a Center of Excellence for the study of numerical cognition. At the time, this center was the only one in Psychology that was awarded funding since Humanities and Social Sciences were added to the Centers of Excellence program in 2000. In 2012, Henik won a prestigious
European Research Council
The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...
(ERC) Advanced Researcher Grant, which is awarded to allow exceptional, established research leaders to pursue ground-breaking, high-risk projects that open new directions in their research field. Henik's ERC grant was awarded to study the role of size perception and evaluation in numerical cognition. The main methods involved in this research include behavioral studies dealing with typical and atypical development of numerical concepts, imaging studies, work on lower animals (i.e., Archer fish, who are able to evaluate sizes but who do not have a cerebral cortex, which is thought to be central in arithmetic) and examination of computational aspects of development through
evolutionary algorithms
In computational intelligence (CI), an evolutionary algorithm (EA) is a subset of evolutionary computation, a generic population-based metaheuristic optimization algorithm. An EA uses mechanisms inspired by biological evolution, such as reproduc ...
.
Notable awards
* 2017 - Excellent Mentor Prize, awarded by the Israel Society for Neuroscience (ISFN) for exceptional mentoring in neuroscience.
* 2018 - Humboldt Research Award, awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, in recognition of accomplishments in research and teaching.
* 2020 - FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence Mentoring Prize 2020, awarded by the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and the Kavli Foundation scholars network for demonstrated leadership in fostering the careers of neuroscientists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_KHiLy9RIE&feature=youtu.be]
References
External links
* C
{{DEFAULTSORT:Henik, Avishai
Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni
Israeli people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent
1945 births
Living people
Israeli cognitive scientists
Israeli Jews
Scientists from Tel Aviv
European Research Council grantees