The Team

Nir Fresco, PI

I am an Associate Professor in Departments of Industrial Engineering & Management and Philosophy, at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and the principal investigator of the Epistemology and Cognition Lab. Most of my work is in the foundations of cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of computation and information, and philosophy of mind.
One branch of my research focuses on understanding - from informational and computational perspectives - how information processing contributes to our cognitive life. To that effect, I study the explanatory roles 'computation', 'representation', and 'information' play in cognitive neuroscience.
Another branch of research, which is undertaken in the Lab, combines philosophical and behavioural methods to study the relation between automaticity, habit formation, and skill acquisition in humans.

 

Research Team

Mr. Filippo Murabito

PhD Student

I am a PhD student in Philosophy of Cognitive Neuroscience under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Nir Fresco and Prof. Dr. Beate Krickel. My project investigates the epistemic conditions under which cognitive phenomena can be legitimately compared across biological systems, with a particular focus on how mechanistic and computational explanations constrain and enable cross-system cognitive inference. I am a member of the MeReX DFG-Project, and have been a visiting researcher at the TU Berlin. I previously completed an M.A. in Logic, Philosophy, and History of Science at the University of Florence.

https://www.merex-project.org/team

murabito@post.bgu.ac.il

Ms. Rotem Yahel

PhD Student

I am a Ph.D. student in the departments of Industrial Engineering & Management and Philosophy, specializing in the philosophy of social psychology.

https://bgu.academia.edu/RotemYahel

yahelro@bgu.ac.il

Mr. Asaf Menachem Einav

PhD Student

I am a PhD student in the philosophy of cognitive neuroscience, currently working on the research question: How can an explanatory framework that is deliberately confined to the boundaries of the body appeal to entities that supervene on the external distal environment? This research is conducted as part of a DFG-funded project under the supervision of Nir Fresco and Peter Schulte. Prior to my doctoral studies, I worked as an undergraduate research assistant in Nir Fresco’s laboratory and subsequently served as the laboratory director.

easaf@post.bgu.ac.il

Ms. Noa Ohayon

Undergraduate Student (Guided research & Research Assistant)

noaohayo@post.bgu.ac.il

Ms. Yuval Malkai

Undergraduate Student (Guided research)

malyuv@post.bgu.ac.il

Alumni

A list if all past research team members 

  • Rina Neiman
    • Undergraduate Student (Guided research & Research Assistant)
    • rinane@post.bgu.ac.il

 

  • Naomi Shechter
    • Undergraduate Student (guided research)
    • naomishe@post.bgu.ac.il

 

  • Oran Gottlieb
    • Undergraduate Student (guided research)
    • orangot@post.bgu.ac.il

 

  • Michael Stupniker
    • Undergraduate Student (guided research)
    • orangot@post.bgu.ac.il

 

  • Adam Singer
    • MA Student
    • MA Thesis (philosophy of cognitive science): What Are the Implications of The Receiver Dependence of Functional Information on Its Objectivity?
    • adamsing@post.bgu.ac.il

 

  • Gil Lipkin-Shahak
    • MA Student
    • MA Thesis (philosophy of cognitive science): Necessity of Semantic Features for Computational Individuation
    • gillipk@post.bgu.ac.il

 

  • Itay Navon
    • MA Student
    • MA Thesis (philosophy of cognitive science): Analyzing the Nature of Skilled Action: the interplay between automatic and cognitive control in motor skills
    • itaynavo@post.bgu.ac.il