Hillel Aviezer, PhD

Click here for my CV

I graduated the clinical neuropsychology program at Hebrew University and completed my PhD under the supervision of Ran Hassin and Shlomo Bentin. In my postdoctoral research I worked with Alex Todorov at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University. I am currently an associate professor at the psychology department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and director of the Affective Neuropsychology Lab. Our research focuses on how people express and perceive social and emotional signals in various interpersonal channels. An important line of research in the lab aims to understand the neural underpinnings of emotion perception in both healthy individuals and neuropsychological populations including Huntington’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease, as well as individuals with Visual Agnosia and Prosopagnosia. 

Contact email: haviezer@huji.ac.il

Zohar is an MA student in the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in clinical rehabilitation neuropsychology. Her research investigates the phenomenon of illusory facial emotion, focusing on the metacognitive processes involved in contextualized facial expression perception. She explores how context shapes our understanding of emotional expressions.

Zohar is nearing the completion of her MA in clinical rehabilitation neuropsychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and holds a BA in psychology and consulting from Bar-Ilan University.

Hodaya Neuhaus Malka is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research explores how ADHD symptoms influence emotion recognition, with a focus on attention mechanisms using eye-tracking technology. Additionally, she is interested in individual differences in interpreting emotional cues in context and the role of attention in shaping these perceptions.

Hodaya holds an M.A. in Exploratory Psychology from the Hebrew University, where she studied the effects of virtual social environments on social facilitation. She earned her B.Sc. in Cognitive Science and Psychology from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

(co-supervised with Prof. Yoni Pertzov)

AI generated Facial expressions

(co-supervised with Dr. Ariel Goldstein)

Face-context integration in Prosopagnisia

Devorah is an MA student in the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specializing in clinical rehabilitation neuropsychology. Her research investigates the relationship between facial expression and affect in line with feedback hypotheses and reinforcing the wider framework of self-perception theory. Devorah considers the relative nature of perception applying adaptation principles to explore how perception of facial expression shapes emotional experience.


Devorah is nearing the completion of her MA in clinical rehabilitation neuropsychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and holds a BA in psychology and linguistics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Ofek is a MA student studying clinical neuropsychology in the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She received her BA in psychology and musicology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Her thesis will focus on the influence of heredity on the recognition of facial expressions.

Noa is an M.A student for clinical neuropsychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research will focus on the mechanisms of facial emotion recognition occurring with and without visual mental imagery (i.e, congenital Aphantasia), and combines cognitive neuroscience and social psychology methods. By utilizing more organic and subtle facial expressions, Noa aspires to explore how mental imagery vividness shapes our ability to recognize facial emotions in everyday life.

Noa received her BS.c in psychobiology from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

(2020-2024)

Facial reactions to emotional music

Emotion experience in Kallmann’s syndrome

Maayan Wellins is an MA student in the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on social synchrony in Parkinson's Disease patients and the effect of standard of care treatments on sociality. By working with Parkinson's patients actively receiving care in real-life settings, Maayan hopes to shed light on unexplored areas of the patients' everyday experience with the disease.

Maayan received her BA in Psychobiology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

My research focuses on understanding the role of language and semantic knowledge in emotion perception. As part of my thesis I wish to develop language-free tests to measure emotion perception independently from language, while manipulating language itself in order to study its causal influence. Finally, I wish to examine the direct influence of language loss on emotion perception in a clinical population, specifically people who suffer from Aphasia.  

(2015-2024)

Doron is a PhD student in the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research focuses on the mechanisms for emotion communication in the voice and combines cognitive neuroscience and social psychology methods. By utilizing real-life emotional expressions, Doron explores how contextual information shapes our perception of vocal expressions in everyday life.

Doron received his MA in clinical neuropsychology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his BA in psychology and economics from Ben-Gurion university of the Negev.

(2016-2024)

My research focuses on individual differences in the susceptibility to context. Specifically, I attempt to characterize individual differences in context effects when perceiving emotion from the face.

(2013-2021)

Neta Yitzhak is a PhD Candidate in Psychology. Neta's primary research interests relate to perception of subtle facial expressions, both in healthy individuals and neuropsychological populations. She received her MA in clinical neuropsychology and BA in psychobiology from the Hebrew university.

Neta received the Hans Wiener dissertation award.

(2014-2020)

I am currently a Ph.D. student in Clinical- Neuropsychology program at the Psychology Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

I am interested in the role of emotional bodily expressions in emotion recognition processes in Parkinson Disease patients and healthy people. My additional focus of interest is emotion recognition and perception through affective knowledge.

(2013-2021)

What are the neural mechanisms behind our social behavior? What cognitive abilities allow us to interact effectively? These are the kind of questions I’m interested in. My PhD is focused on automatic reactions to emotional expressions, looking into the mechanisms behind this phenomenon.

(2013-2019)

Hadasa Avramovich is a master’s level student studying clinical psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

She received her B.A. in Psychology and Multidisciplinary studies in the humanities and social sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be'er-Sheva, Israel.

Thesis: perception of subtle facial expressions in patients with Huntington disease.

(2016 - 2018)

My research interests involve  neuro-cognitive mechanisms underlying expressing and perceiving highly intense emotions. 

Additional research projects:

• Perceptual mechanisms underlying emotion recognition deficits in Developmental Visual Agnosia, under the supervision of Dr. Hillel Aviezer.

• Correlation between deficits in emotional expression recognition and difficulty in integration of expressive action unites, joint project with Dr. Hillel Aviezer. 

(2013-2018)

Thesis: Aftereffects in the perception of emotional gait patterns.

(2013-2016)

Thesis: Impaired facial expression recognition in otherwise healthy individuals: Characteristics and mechanisms.

(2013 - 2016)

Thesis: Affect Recognition from Faces or Bodies; Isolated and Combined as a Function of Distance.

(2013 - 2016)

Neuropsychology of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in children

co-supervised with Dr. Peleg

(2021 - 2024)

Traumatic brain injury and social perception

co-supervised with Dr. Tal Shani-Ur

(2020-2023)

Kallmann syndrome, disgust and morality

(2019-2022)

Empathic accuracy and emotion perception

(2019-2022)