Abstract: In 1954, Penfield and Jasper’s findings based on electric stimulation of epileptic patients led them to hypothesize that a sensory representation of the body should be found in the precuneus. They termed this representation the “supplementary sensory” area and emphasized that the exact form of this homunculus could not be specified on the basis […]

Abstract: Social networking sites (SNSs) have become an essential part of our lives. The purpose of this paper is to explore how demographic variables, SNS importance, social and informational usage, and personality traits (extroversion/introversion, openness, neuroticism, internal and external locus of control) can explain participation frequency of the four biggest SNSs in Israel: Facebook, WhatsApp, […]

  IDC Herzliya congratulates Dr. Elette Boyle, senior lecturer and researcher at the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science, for winning a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant.  The grant targets early-career researchers with potential for excellent frontier research, and provides research funding of up to €1.5 million over five years. Dr. Boyle was […]

  Yossi Maaravi’s latest Israel Science Foundation-funded research project explores an existing paradox between first and second-mover advantage in a negotiation setting. Literature on behavioral decision-making and negotiations to date usually advocates a first-mover advantage in negotiations and bases this preference on the anchoring heuristic. However, recent research describes a Practitioner-Researcher Paradox, where negotiation practitioners […]

    IDC Herzliya congratulates Professor Gil Kalai, senior lecturer and researcher at the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science, for winning the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant which is part of Horizon 2020 — the biggest R&D initiative of the EU. Professor Kalai’s research deals with the development of different methods such as noise sensitivity and stability in […]

  The paradox of sex: a source of life and pleasure, pain and shame, beauty and destruction – how do we make sense of the mixed emotions of sexuality? Gurit Birnbaum, head of the Sexuality in Close Relationships Lab at the IDC, has been exploring our multi-faceted relationship with sex. In her fascinating TEDx talk, she […]

Many exciting projects at IDC’s Media Innovation Lab (miLAB) are shaping the way people interact with robots. The Human Computer Interaction Research and Prototyping Lab is part of the school of Communications. It was originally led by Oren Zuckerman, Noa Morag, and Guy Hoffman, and has now grown to a team of six faculty members […]

Anger is a powerful emotion that can be directed constructively or destructively depending on the context and the motivation of the parties involved. Unlike other emotions, anger has a high level of efficacy and certainty, meaning, the person experiencing anger feels a strong urge to act– a drive to somehow alleviate or correct the injustice […]

    Recent unrest in the European Union, caused by the financial and economic crisis, increasing migration and threat posed by terrorism, has led to a crisis of legitimacy within the Union. In search of understanding and reconciliation between the EU citizens and its government, RECONNECT aims to build a new, citizen-centered narrative for the […]

If you were shown a photograph of a face and asked to match it with a name out of four options, what are the chances you’d guess correct? Turns out that 30% to 40% of the time you would guess correctly. In a study that spanned several years, the results are striking: we do look […]

  Dr. Amnon Cavari and Dr. Maoz Rosenthal of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy together with Dr. Ilana Shpaizman of Bar Ilan University have received a prestigious four year grant from the Israel Science Foundation to study the policy agenda in Israel (CAP-IL). CAP-IL will collect and code data on all branches of […]

  Many are familiar with the emotional rollercoaster that comes with a new romantic relationship – the teenage years come rushing by as we reminisce on our first crush and the vulnerability of being the first to show interest – the fear of rejection is unbearable! Today, with the plethora of dating apps, reliving those […]

  It comes as no surprise that hearing someone talk bad about their own group creates division and hostility among that group; yet an outsider who overhears someone criticizing their own group may have more interest to tune in – indeed, research carried out by Tamar Saguy, Associate Professor at the Baruch Ivcher School of […]

  EU-LISTCO is a project funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 program that aims to investigate the challenges posed to European foreign policy by identifying risks connected to areas of limited statehood and contested orders. Areas of limited statehood are regions where the central government authorities lack the power to enforce laws against pervasive violence. […]

          The Israel Science Foundation (ISF) and the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) recently awarded a grant for a collaborative project with IDC’s Dean of the School of Sustainability, Prof. Yoav Yair, and Professor Xiushu Qie of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Atmospheric Physics. The project is titled, […]

    Exciting things are happening at the IDC Advanced Virtuality Lab. In a conversation with Dr. Doron Friedman who is head of the lab and a Senior Lecturer in the Sammy Ofer School of Communications, we got a glimpse of where virtual reality research is headed. Friedman has recently been awarded a grant by […]

When we think about some of the largest intergroup conflict between different groups and races, it is likely that we automatically attribute the conflict to politics – a lack of consensus that results in fighting and an “us vs. them” mentality. But what about the individuals who are caught up in these conflicts? How are […]

Two risks characterize the European Union’s regional and global security environments:   Areas of limited statehood (ALS) in the EU’s East and South, in which central government authorities are too weak to enforce rules and/or do not control the monopoly over the means of violence.   Contested orders (CO), in which various actors challenge the […]

The IDC Office of Research and Global Engagement has recently undertaken two projects that will significantly contribute to the higher education community.  As part of the greater Erasmus+ Program of the EU, the goal of TeachEx and Silice is to collaborate with universities and social enterprises to create innovative solutions to constantly changing educational needs. […]

The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), as part of an international consortium, was awarded two grants totaling about 500,000$ by the prestigious Horizon2020 Program of the European Union. Members of the consortium include half a dozen of law enforcement agencies, technology companies, research centers and universities. The RED-Alert project will bring data mining and predictive […]

The idea of a robot becoming a household fixture that performs regular service tasks is accepted by most and even used by many, with products such as Amazon’s Alexa penetrating the market with great force. Asking a robot to switch off the light or bring you a Latte Macchiato is hardly a remarkable feature — […]

  You don’t need to be addicted to watching America’s Next Top Model to know what a model looks like: thin and beautiful. You also probably don’t need to be told that a model’s diet mostly consists of celery and carrots. No model would be caught dead with ice cream dripping off her chin, or […]

  Organizations, first and foremost, are made up of individuals, who come together with a common goal – the success of which largely depends on the engagement and performance of its employees. Despite the weight that is placed on performance, it remains a vaguely defined term that is thrown around without much understanding of how […]

  It may come as a big surprise to most of us that creativity is not as innate and mysterious as it seems. After all, isn’t thinking outside the box and generating new ideas the way of the future for any organization that wants to have an edge in an already over-saturated market? Isn’t the […]

“Breaking the Circuit-Size Barrier for Secure Computation under DDH”, is the collaborative research work of Elette Boyle, a Senior Lecturer in the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science at IDC, Niv Gilboa (Ben Gurion University) and Yuval Ishai (Technion & UCLA). The paper introduces a new approach to a fascinating area of cryptographic applications and […]

Every single one of us can probably look back and remember this one teacher we had, that made a real impact on us. Usually, this model teacher is someone who took the time to understand our needs, and was able to modify their “grown-up” perspective to our point of view. They gave us a sense […]

  Sponsored by: The Italian Embassy in Israel, The Israel Italy Chamber of Commerce, and DICE at IDC Herzliya When and Where: June 1st, 2016; at the IDC campus, Psychology building room PE204 The workshop will gather Italian and Israeli researchers working on the behavioral and brain bases of economic psychology and judgment and decision-making. […]

Today there are so many ways that stores try to entice us to spend our money. Advertising gimmicks lure us in, smells and colors tickle our senses, and gadgets and toys keep us in places like the Apple Store all day. It is increasingly difficult to exercise will power and keep shopping temptations at bay. On top of all that, there can be other factors affecting our willingness to shop