Dr. Sharon Naparstek will lead a session about Cognitive Aging, Depression, and Neurodegenerative Risk
Yonatan will give a talk on aging and cognitive reserve 
Geffen will present a poster about flexibility and borderline personality disorder
Dafna will present a poster with a pilot study of computational resources and efficiency in aging

We are delighted to share that Lihi Cohen has received the Charles J. Gelso Psychotherapy Research Grant 2026 from the Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy Research (APA Division 29) for the project "Using LLM to Represent and Discover Patterns of Therapist Responsiveness in Psychotherapy." The grant supports her doctoral research, supervised by Dr. Sharon Naparstek and Prof. Dana Atzil-Slonim.

We are happy to share our new publication in Scientific Reports on age-related changes in numerical abilities and the role of individual differences: Math and verbal fluency across adulthood provide insights into aging and individual differences.
Link

Come visit our poster at the APS Annual Convention 2026 in Barcelona, May 28–30: “Psychological and Socioemotional Flexibility Shape Depression in Younger and Older Adults.” This is wonderful work by our students Eran Khalif Josef and Avigail Rosenfeld-Ganzel.

Poster #62276, Poster Session I
Thursday, 28 May 2026, 8:15 PM–9:15 PM
APS link

We are delighted to share that Dr. Sharon Naparstek has received the NIPI Young Investigator Award 2026 for the project “Cognitive strategies and cognitive reserve: Exploring individuals at high risk for Alzheimer’s disease as a window into cognitive aging.” This exciting work is led by Yonatan Schwartz and collaborator Prof. Michal Schnaider Beeri.

Inbar presented her work on the use of vocal records in the study of depression during the visit of BIU President and Rector in our join SCAN center. 

Eran will give a talk on socioemotional flexibility in young and old adults
Inbar will present a poster on the role of executive functions in depression
Sharon will lead a chair on task switching in different domains
Lihi will present her work on voluntary affective task switching

Our lab hosts an online conference supported by the DAAD: German Academic Exchange Services. 

A collaboration with Prof. Andrea Kiesel (Faculty of Economics and Behavioral Sciences| Institute for Psychology University of Freiburg) and Dr. Maayan Katzir (The Interdisciplinary Program in Conflict Resolution, Management, and Negotiation at Bar-Ilan University)

Register for free here: https://forms.gle/TCaqSR974hPFTbJ98

Congratulations to Lihi Cohen on receiving the President’s Doctoral Fellowship! 😊

She will begin her PhD in October under the supervision of Dr. Sharon Naparstek and Dr. Dana Atzil-Slonim. Wishing her every success!

Come hear us at the 11th Israeli Conference on Cognition Research. Our students will present work currently done in our lab on flexibility and aging.  

Apply now to the Research assistant position and participate in our exciting studies.

Read our New paper at Biological Psychology! We show that oxytocin modulates the interaction between cognitive control and emotion!