Assaf Harel, PhD

Assaf Harel is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at Wright State University, where he heads the human neuroscience and visual cognition Lab. His research employs a neuroergonomic approach to establish how visual recognition occurs in real-world settings, with a particular focus on visual expertise, object and scene recognition, attention, and top-down control. He investigates the impact of observer-based factors, such as the observer’s behavioral goals and level of expertise on the nature of sensory processing and its underlying neural substrates. Harel is a former research fellow at NIH’s National Institute of Mental Health, where he specialized in fMRI research using multivariate analytical methods. He holds a PhD and MA in cognitive neuropsychology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a BA in psychology and mass communications from Tel Aviv University.