Research overview
Our research links subjective experiences to performance-based measures and examines the physiological and computational mechanisms underlying this relationship.
Our overarching goal is to understand motivational difficulties across diagnostic boundaries. By linking subjective experience to performance and physiology, we aim to inform more precise assessment and, ultimately, treatments that target specific symptoms.
Computational modelling
Neuroimaging & physiology
Behavioural tasks & symptom tracking
Effort perception and motivated behaviour
Motivation varies between people, across the lifespan, and in neurological and psychiatric conditions. We investigate how the subjective experience of physical and cognitive effort relates to performance and physiological responses. Our aim is to understand the mechanisms behind these differences.
Supported by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF).
Behavioural tasks · Computational modelling · Physiology
Motivation and affective symptoms
We investigate negative symptoms in schizophrenia, including apathy and reduced emotional expression, alongside related work on depression, cognition, and ageing. We use behavioural tasks and clinical measures to characterise these symptoms and examine their underlying mechanisms.
The schizophrenia project is conducted with Emilio Fernandez-Egea at the University of Cambridge.
Clinical measures · Neuroimaging · Behavioural tasks
Belief updating and behavioural adaptation
We examine how individuals update their beliefs in changing environments, how this process varies with age and mental health, and whether different belief-updating tasks reflect shared computational mechanisms. Related work investigates beliefs about self-efficacy.
The belief-updating project is conducted with Matt Nassar at Brown University.
Supported by CRCNS (NSF–NIMH–BSF).
Learning tasks · Bayesian models · Individual differences
A handgrip experiment
In a study with 76 healthy young adults, we asked how physical force and task outcomes relate to experienced effort.
- Task
- Participants squeezed a handgrip to reach a target on screen, then rated how effortful each attempt felt.
- Analysis
- Regression models estimated how force and failure contributed to effort ratings.
- Finding
- Higher depressive symptom scores were associated with ratings that depended more on failure and less on force. This association does not establish causation.
Ela Herzberg, Israel Halperin & Noham Wolpe · 2026
Public files include data, a notebook, MATLAB analysis, and R regression/figure code.
An ongoing question: how does the context of an action shape the effort we experience?
For students interested in these questionsCurrent work in the lab
Effort, EEG & eye tracking
Current effort-exertion experiments in the lab use EEG and eye tracking alongside behavioural measurements. EEG records electrical activity at the scalp; eye tracking measures gaze and pupil changes.
These methods form part of our ongoing research into effort and motivation, separate from the published handgrip study above.