Talk:Moshe Bar (neuroscientist)

Old version - deleted
I thought there was an older longer version of this article...was it deleted? I thought there was some mention of the Martinos Center in the old version. See one discussion here -kslays (talk • contribs) 04:44, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * There was an old version that was speedy deleted. That's kind of strange to speedy delete something that's survived AfD once. Someone came on IRC and wanted advice about how to differentiate this Moshe Bar from the open source guy, eventualy we concluded that this one was probably notable enough for a short article, so I started one over from scratch.  Gigs (talk) 12:50, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Huh, well, we might as well ask for the old one back so we can integrate the text, right? -kslays (talk • contribs) 15:49, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You are free to ask User:JzG or another administrator to userify it into your userspace. Be careful to preserve attribution of the original authors in some form. See WP:MAD Gigs (talk) 19:41, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposed article revision
Hi, Working for the article subject and his team, I have agreed to assist them in revising this article with the objective to resolve the issues highlighted by the maintenance templates from 2019. I have now put substantial effort into working through the article with this aim, adding secondary sources and more complete inline references, wikiformatting, cleaning up biased language, etc as well as getting the content up to date.

Given my conflict of interest in the matter, I'm now looking for independent advice on how to proceed. I'm thinking that using Template:Edit COI would make this talk page a bit overloaded given the length of the full article revision. Should I perhaps upload the revised version as a subpage to my user page for consideration? Any advice would be appreciated.

Looking forward to, hopefully, finally getting this article up to a reasonable standard! Thanks, /Urbourbo (talk) 12:39, 17 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Any chance that I might get your input on the above, given that you added the maintenance templates back in 2019? Would you prefer if I added the revision suggestion using template:collapse top/bottom here? Thanks! /Urbourbo (talk) 13:57, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit confused - there's only a COI declaration on your user page User:Urbourbo but no paid disclosure with, whereas here, there's a paid disclosure. WP:COIPAYDISCLOSE does say to use a . If there is any "biased language", I think that should have priority on a WP:BLP. Widefox ; talk 23:19, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your quick response. First: yes, it's correct that I have a paid relationship to Hedonia. (I believe this is also stated on my user page, although not using the template you mention - hope ok!)
 * Following your advice, I'm now adding the full draft below using . I hope you agree that it's a substantial step forward towards better adhering to our policies and guidelines at large. Again, I'd appreciate your feedback, in particular in regards to the tagged issues. All the best, /Urbourbo (talk) 10:36, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I would be more comfortable if you did use the template on your page for all articles. It currently doesn't list either a COI or PAID with this article.
 * What is the current ""biased language"? Widefox ; talk 11:21, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I guess I just felt that template made my user page too bulky. Regarding the biased language, I wasn't referring to any specific phrases, but e.g. I agreed with you that the wording in the comment below wasn't fitting for Wikipedia, and that wording is also among the wording that I already removed in the proposal now copied in below. Was there any other phrasing you felt was biased from your end, that remains in the proposed revision? /Urbourbo (talk) 13:02, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Proposal
As discussed above, here is the proposed article revision to resolve the tagged issues:

Moshe Bar is an Israeli cognitive neuroscientist. He is a professor at Bar-Ilan University and the Chief Scientific Officer at the Israeli mental health startup Hedonia. He was previously head of the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University and before that director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Bar’s research focuses on various aspects of brain function, including memory, foresight, mental load, mind-wandering, mood, and creativity. Bar has also contributed to the development of conscious cities, which takes into account the effects of urban design on mental health.

He has published over 80 research articles, contributed several book chapters, and edited two scientific books. In 2022 he published the popular science book Mindwandering: How Your Constant Mental Drift Can Improve Your Mood and Boost Your Creativity. He received the 2012 Donald O. Hebb Award from the International Neural Network Society, and he is a fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists.

Education and professional history
Bar completed a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Ben-Gurion University in 1988. Thereafter, in parallel with military service in the Israeli Air Force, he completed a master’s degree in computer science and applied mathematics in 1994 at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he worked under the supervision of Shimon Ullman.

He pursued doctoral studies in psychology at the University of Southern California, under the supervision of Irving Biederman, earning a Ph.D. in 1998. He continued with postdoctoral research at the psychology department at Harvard University, collaborating with Daniel Schacter and Roger Tootel. Since 2000, Bar held a joint faculty appointment at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital as the director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory before returning to Israel in 2011 to head the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University.

Thereafter, Bar co-founded the Israeli mental health startup company Hedonia, translating the research-based Facilitating Thought Progression (FTP) method, based on his research on the topic of mood, depression and thought, into mobile games.

Research and scientific contributions
Bar has made significant contributions to various areas of study, including visual recognition, predictions in the brain, mental simulations and mindwandering, mood and depression, and aesthetic preference. His work challenges traditional views and sheds light on the complex mechanisms underlying these cognitive processes.

Visual recognition
Branching off of his graduate training with professors Shimon Ullman and Irving Biederman, Bar has been using behavioral and neuroimaging (fMRI and MEG) methods to reveal critical aspects of how the brain recognizes objects, scenes, and context in the world around us. This research simultaneously challenged two long-held views. First, together with others, he has argued and shown that the propagation of visual analysis in the cortex is not strictly “bottom-up,” as has been believed for decades, but rather that perception is a result of internally driven top-down processes as much as it is of incoming bottom-up sensory information. As such, his work shows that memory and the prefrontal cortex are active players in visual perception. Bar first proposed this notion in a Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience article 2003, and provided the first significant empirical support in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper 2006.

A second debate and new domain of research that was steered by Bar’s ideas and studies involves the evasive distinction between spatial and associative processing. Part of the contribution of his research was to characterize the cortical network that mediates the processing of contextual associations, introduced broadly in a Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper 2004. This newly discovered network included a site in the medial temporal cortex that has traditionally been considered as mediating the representation and processing of spatial information. His findings offer an alternative interpretation for those previous reports, suggesting that the role of this hippocampal region may more generally involve mediating associative information rather than merely space-related information.

Predictions in the brain
Following his research on the role of associations in cognition, Bar’s research has demonstrated the brain's predictive and proactive capabilities. His theoretical and empirical work, focusing on how memory is utilized to generate future predictions, has contributed to cognitive neuroscience discourse. Bar integrated the various views on predictions in a special issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society 2009, and then expanded in the book Predictions in the Brain: Using Our Past to Generate a Future edited by Bar for Oxford Press 2011.

Mental simulations and mindwandering
Bar’s research also provides insight into the human tendency for mental simulations and mindwandering. As suggested by his work, humans use their experiences, stored in memory, to simulate new, imagined experiences, can later be used as predictive scripts that guide our cognition, decisions and action. This concept was first introduced to a broader audience in his 2016 New York Times piece 'Think Less, Think Better', and was later expanded in his book Mindwandering in 2022.

Mood and depression
During his time in the US, Bar’s research interests expanded to include clinical aspects, particularly pertaining to psychiatric disorders such as major depression. He started with a theoretical paper in Trends in Cognitive Sciences in 2009 that presented a synthesis of findings from psychiatry, neuroscience and cognitive psychology. This paper proposed a hypothesis linking mood with thinking patterns and associative processing. Central to this hypothesis is that a thinking pattern that involves a broad associative scope can elicit positive mood, while a narrow and ruminative thinking pattern can evoke negative mood.

Through collaborations first with the department of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital, and since his return to Israel with psychiatric institutions there, this theory has been tested and supported and later implemented as a therapeutic tool, later known as Facilitating Thought Progression (FTP).

Aesthetic preference
Bar's research on aesthetics has implications for design, architecture, and public health. His studies on streetscapes have contributed to design criteria that encourage physical activity. Bar's exploration of the effect of contour, such as smooth versus sharp shapes, on subjective preference and emotion has provided valuable insights for designers and architects.

Proposal discussion

 * ✅ Regards, Spintendo  09:21, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, also for implementing the requested removal of the "Prof." titles! /Urbourbo (talk) 11:19, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @Urbourbo You're welcome. Also as an explanation for the external link change, the reason why I used the About-page for the link is that the main page has a large "Buy" link for readers to purchase the subject's publications, which technically falls under #5 of WP:ELNO. Regards, Spintendo  11:28, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification! /Urbourbo (talk) 11:49, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
 * One major item which is missing from the request, are the exact, verbatim descriptions of any text and/or references to be removed from the article. So far, only a proposed rewrite has been included with the request. To that end, kindly provide in a separate request below, just the text which is to be removed, taking care to ensure that the proposed removed citations (if any) are also included with the request. When ready to proceed, kindly change the  template's answer parameter to read from y to n. Thank you! Regards, Spintendo  02:26, 26 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks again . For an exact representation of both removals and additions, please see this diff in my sandbox between the current article and the proposed draft. I hope this helps! /Urbourbo (talk) 15:50, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, now double-checked, and none of the 8 references in the current article have been removed in the proposed draft. /Urbourbo (talk) 15:54, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

50% of the references (13 out of 26) in the proposed text are authored by the subject of the article. I'm afraid that this remains an issue to be resolved (by driving that percentage lower) to abide by WP:NOR. The text itself is improving, but there is still items of puffery and WP:PEACOCK Bar’s research evolved to include clinical questions and His theoretical and empirical work, focusing on how memory is utilized to generate future predictions, has provided a fresh perspective on cognition These need to be further refined. Regards, Spintendo  03:51, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for highlighting these example phrases. I have to admit that I missed them. Now adjusted these as well as a few other remaining similar phrasings in the proposed draft above.
 * With regards to several references being (co-)authored by Bar, I assume you are mainly referring to the Research and scientific contributions section. I'm afraid I see no good independent secondary sources for this section. However, I hope you agree that the current draft is a definitive improvement over the existing article. Again, looking forward to your feedback. All the best, /Urbourbo (talk) 18:56, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I would agree that it's a work in progress. As far as the section without finding good sources, I would leave that out. Also, just a reminder that previous talk page posts of yours should not be altered once another editor has posted after you in the same thread, unless you use the WP:REDACT guidelines. Regards, Spintendo  07:36, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, so it sounds like we have two options then to address the issue you raised about original research: Either a) cut the current article’s length in half by removing the entire Research section. Or b) publish the draft above as a significant improvement over the current version, to be freely edited for improved sourcing over time as a work in progress.
 * Of these, my preference would be option b) as the most constructive way forward, even if it means that we would risk an template added. We would still go from an article with three maintenance templates to just one.
 * I hope this makes sense.
 * Thanks also for the reminder. Just to make sure that I don’t misunderstand the WP:REDACT, I assume I can still adjust the edit request added above - or will I need to paste a new version of the full edit request if I want to adjust anything further?
 * All the best, /Urbourbo (talk) 21:42, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @Urbourbo You're invited to make as many changes as you like as long as no one has posted after you. Once another editor has posted after you, you should indicate any changes to previous text of yours by using underlined font to indicate added text and strikeout font to indicate deleted text. You also need to place a new time stamp in your signature next to the original timestamp (by using five tildes instead of four). As an alternative to this, you can place a brand new edit request containing all of the information, including the corrected text, at the bottom of the page as a new post. Regards, ` Spintendo  01:06, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Also, my issue is not so much NOR as it is the use of his studies as primary sources. In scientific literature, a primary source is the original publication of a scientist's new data, results, and theories. WP:PSTS states:
 * Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation.
 * A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. Any interpretation needs a secondary source.
 * Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so.
 * Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them.
 * That's where my caution lies is in basing large portions of the article on the subject's publications. I'm not inclined at this time to do that. Regards, Spintendo  01:56, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

There are numerous examples where the article draws conclusions, uses puffery language, and uses inappropriate tenses (referring to the reader as 'we' and 'our'). I list these here in the hope that the COI editor will take these into account in their next edit request, to have these removed. A sampling of this problematic text:
 * 1) Bar has made significant contributions to the field of cognition; ideas and findings that have challenged dominant paradigms in areas of exceptional diversity from the flow of information in the cortex during visual recognition to the .... effect of form on aesthetic preferences to a clinical theory on mood and depression. His research has influenced a diverse spectrum of domains.
 * 2) Branching off of his solid graduate training (with Professors Ullman and Biederman), Bar has been using behavioral and neuroimaging (fMRI and MEG) methods to reveal critical aspects of how the brain recognizes objects, scenes and context in the world around us.
 * 3) This research simultaneously challenged two long-held views. First, together with others, he has argued and shown convincingly that the propagation of visual analysis in the cortex is not strictly “bottom-up,” as has been believed for decades, but rather that perception is a result of internally driven top-down processes as much as it is of incoming bottom-up sensory information.
 * 4) As such, his work shows that memory and the prefrontal cortex are active players in visual perception that has been exceptionally influential, it has become the mainstream view of how the brain processes visual information.
 * 5) A second debate and new domain of research that was steered by Bar’s ideas and studies involves the evasive distinction between spatial (e.g., locations, positions, navigation) and associative (i.e., what comes with what) processing.
 * 6) Part of the seminal contribution of his research was to characterize the cortical network that mediates processing of contextual associations (e.g., the associations between all the objects that one typically expects to find in a kitchen)
 * 7) His findings offer a challenging interpretation for those previous reports, suggesting that the role of this hippocampal region should more generally be described as mediating associative information rather than exclusively space-related information.
 * 8) Following his research on the role of associations in cognition, Bar has pioneered (together with a few other groups) a major new research wave indicating that the brain is a predictive and proactive organ.
 * 9) His theoretical and empirical work has set in motion a collection of hypotheses and studies about how, where and why the brain uses the past (memory) to generate a future (predictions).
 * 10) This work was covered by international media extensively which is not surprising given how much of our time, and of our cortex is to our inner mental world and its service to our actions, perceptions and interactions
 * 11) Bar’s research also explains the intensity and usefulness of humans’ proclivity for mental simulations and mindwandering. As the philosopher Karl Popper famously said, we let our hypotheses die in our stead.
 * 12) These simulations are stored as ‘memories’ and later can be used as predictive scripts that guide our cognition, decisions and action. They have links to the brain’s ‘default network’.
 * 13) Several years ago, Bar’s research evolved to include clinical questions, particularly pertaining to psychiatric disorders such as major depression, and this work made a rapid impact.
 * 14) The crux of his groundbreaking hypothesis is that a thinking pattern that involves a broad associative scope elicits positive mood, while a ruminative thinking pattern and inhibition trigger negative mood.
 * 15) Through extensive and fruitful collaborations first with the outstanding department of psychiatry at the Harvard medical school and the Massachusetts General Hospital, and since his return with multiple psychiatric institutions in Israel, this theory has been tested, supported and polished to a point where it is now being implemented in a therapeutic tool soon to become available to all.
 * 16) The theory connects the semantic scope of mental processes to neurogenesis in the hippocampus (which is admittedly a big leap but with promise)
 * 17) The behavioral and neuroimaging publications that stemmed from these ideas already attracted exceptional levels of attention with their global explanatory power and their potential for therapeutic alleviation of symptoms.
 * 18) Therefore, this approach, which already shows significant positive outcomes in pilot participants with major depression, has the potential of helping multiple clinical populations.
 * Many of these examples are quite shocking in how strident they are at flouting of rules of MOS:AWW and WP:VOICE. I list them here with the strong suggestion that the COI editor focus on cleaning up these areas of the article before proposing edit requests in any other areas, as these are the most important I see. In the spirit of collaboration, I and other editors stand ready to help you make these changes, if proposed. Failure to address these issues are done so at the article's expense. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have here on the talk page. Regards, Spintendo  06:30, 10 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I do agree regarding these issues with the original article, which is why out of your 18 points, 14 were already addressed in my edit request above, and another two partly addressed.
 * With regards to the remaining points that I obviously missed in the clean-up work, I will now follow your advice and add a new version of my edit request below with the following adjustments:
 * 2. b. Now removing “in the world around us” (“solid” was already removed)
 * 5. Now adjusting to “that was influenced by Bar’s work”
 * 12. Now removing “our”
 * 17. b. Now removing “their global explanatory power and” (“already” and “exceptional levels of” were already removed)
 * Also, I will opt to separate the request into several separate requests, in the hope of simplifying the review process.
 * All the best, /Urbourbo (talk) 12:00, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Tagged issues
The three tags are still valid. Wording such as "ideas and findings that have challenged dominant paradigms in areas of exceptional diversity". This is just a puff piece currently. WP is not a resume hosting service. Widefox ; talk 23:28, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks, as mentioned previously above, the proposed article revision aims to address all of the three tagged issues. I hope you will agree that it motivates the removal of the tags when published. /Urbourbo (talk) 11:28, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Edit request adjusted & separated
Following the discussion above, below comes my edit request separated into several sections and (for the research section) adjusted accordingly. (Some references may need to be adjusted depending on in which order the edit requests are implemented.) /Urbourbo (talk) 12:56, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Section: Introduction
Moshe Bar is an Israeli cognitive neuroscientist. He is a professor at Bar-Ilan University and the Chief Scientific Officer at the Israeli mental health startup Hedonia. He was previously head of the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University and before that director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Bar’s research focuses on various aspects of brain function, including memory, foresight, mental load, mind-wandering, mood, and creativity. Bar has also contributed to the development of conscious cities, which takes into account the effects of urban design on mental health.

He has published over 80 research articles, contributed several book chapters, and edited two scientific books. In 2022 he published the popular science book Mindwandering: How Your Constant Mental Drift Can Improve Your Mood and Boost Your Creativity. He received the 2012 Donald O. Hebb Award from the International Neural Network Society, and he is a fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists.

Changes include adding notes (from 0 to 11), wikilinks, updated for recent developments, added infobox with portrait. /Urbourbo (talk) 12:56, 11 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks ,
 * Re CITELEAD, I'll be happy to revert with an adjusted request, removing the references and ensuring that the facts are covered (with references) in subsequent sections.
 * Re the third paragraph's publication mentions, my interpretation of 's comment was that he referred to the publications section at the end rather than any mention of Bar's key publications in the lead section. Also, I would assume we can agree that there's a difference between mentioning the number of a type of publications as compared to a comprehensive list of all such publications. My personal assessment (as a non-scientific reader) would be that mentioning the number of articles gives a reasonable and valuable idea of the subject's general notability.
 * Re the third paragraph's award (and fellow) mentions, my take would be that they as well add to the general understanding of his notability. However,
 * Re moving the third paragraph to the subsequent section, I'd be happy to revise my requests so that we move the award and fellow mentions as well as the full Mindwandering sentence, but probably leaving a shorter mention of that important work here as well.
 * Re the wikilinks to memory and creativity I see your point in general, but the reason to link them here specifically was as they refer to his specific academic fields of study. Hope that makes sense.
 * Just let me know if you have any remaining concerns here, but otherwise I'll get back with a corresponding revised request as soon as time permits. Thanks, /Urbourbo (talk) 15:37, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Moshe Bar (born 1964) is an Israeli cognitive neuroscientist. He is a professor at Bar-Ilan University and the Chief Scientific Officer at the Israeli mental health startup Hedonia. He was previously head of the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University and before that director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Bar’s research focuses on various aspects of brain function, including memory, foresight, mental load, mind-wandering, mood, and creativity. Bar has also contributed to the development of conscious cities, which takes into account the effects of urban design on mental health.

He has published over 80 research articles, edited two scientific books and published the popular science book Mindwandering.

Revised edit request based on the bullet list above. /Urbourbo (talk) 14:40, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Section: Education and professional history
Bar completed a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Ben-Gurion University in 1988. Thereafter, in parallel with military service in the Israeli Air Force, he completed a master’s degree in computer science and applied mathematics in 1994 at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he worked under the supervision of Shimon Ullman.

He pursued doctoral studies in psychology at the University of Southern California, under the supervision of Irving Biederman, earning a Ph.D. in 1998. He continued with postdoctoral research at the psychology department at Harvard University, collaborating with Daniel Schacter and Roger Tootel. Since 2000, Bar held a joint faculty appointment at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital as the director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory before returning to Israel in 2011 to head the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center as a professor at Bar-Ilan University.

Thereafter, Bar co-founded the Israeli mental health startup company Hedonia, translating the research-based Facilitating Thought Progression (FTP) method, based on his research on the topic of mood, depression and thought, into mobile games.

Changes include adding notes (from 0 to 8), wikilinks, updated for recent developments. /Urbourbo (talk) 12:56, 11 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks again ,
 * Re INTEGRITY, I'll be happy to make an effort to revert with a revised request to better adhere to this guideline.
 * Re the third paragraph, my take would be that it is reasonable to include based on WP:SELFSOURCE, and also as it conveys important information about the subject's recent pivotal change of direction. Although you have made a valid point that the Research section below is highly reliant on self-published sources, I would claim that this particular sentence should be uncontroversial and can be assumed to be both neutral and authentic.
 * I hope this makes sense, and I'll revert as mentioned shortly. All the best, /Urbourbo (talk) 15:50, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Bar completed a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Ben-Gurion University in 1988. Thereafter, in parallel with military service in the Israeli Air Force, he completed a master’s degree in computer science and applied mathematics in 1994 at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he worked under the supervision of Shimon Ullman.

He pursued doctoral studies in psychology at the University of Southern California, under the supervision of Irving Biederman, earning a Ph.D. in 1998. He continued with postdoctoral research at the psychology department at Harvard University, collaborating with Daniel Schacter and Roger Tootel. Since 2000, Bar held a joint faculty appointment at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital as the director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, before returning to Israel in 2011 to head the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University.

Thereafter, in 2021 Bar co-founded the Israeli mental health startup company Hedonia, translating the research-based Facilitating Thought Progression (FTP) method, based on his research on the topic of mood, depression and thought, into mobile games. In 2022 he published the popular science book Mindwandering: How Your Constant Mental Drift Can Improve Your Mood and Boost Your Creativity.

He received the 2012 Donald O. Hebb Award from the International Neural Network Society, and he is a fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists.

Revised edit request based on the bullet lists above. /Urbourbo (talk) 14:40, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Research and scientific contributions
Bar has made significant contributions to various areas of study, including visual recognition, predictions in the brain, mental simulations and mindwandering, mood and depression, and aesthetic preference. His work challenges traditional views and sheds light on the complex mechanisms underlying these cognitive processes.

Visual recognition
Branching off of his graduate training with professors Shimon Ullman and Irving Biederman, Bar has been using behavioral and neuroimaging (fMRI and MEG) methods to reveal critical aspects of how the brain recognizes objects, scenes, and context. This research simultaneously challenged two long-held views. First, together with others, he has argued and shown that the propagation of visual analysis in the cortex is not strictly “bottom-up,” as has been believed for decades, but rather that perception is a result of internally driven top-down processes as much as it is of incoming bottom-up sensory information. As such, his work shows that memory and the prefrontal cortex are active players in visual perception. Bar first proposed this notion in a Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience article 2003, and provided the first significant empirical support in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper 2006.

A second debate and new domain of research that was influenced by Bar’s work involves the evasive distinction between spatial and associative processing. Part of the contribution of his research was to characterize the cortical network that mediates the processing of contextual associations, introduced broadly in a Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper 2004. This newly discovered network included a site in the medial temporal cortex that has traditionally been considered as mediating the representation and processing of spatial information. His findings offer an alternative interpretation for those previous reports, suggesting that the role of this hippocampal region may more generally involve mediating associative information rather than merely space-related information.

Predictions in the brain
Following his research on the role of associations in cognition, Bar’s research has demonstrated the brain's predictive and proactive capabilities. His theoretical and empirical work, focusing on how memory is utilized to generate future predictions, has contributed to cognitive neuroscience discourse. Bar integrated the various views on predictions in a special issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society 2009, and then expanded in the book Predictions in the Brain: Using Our Past to Generate a Future edited by Bar for Oxford Press 2011.

Mental simulations and mindwandering
Bar’s research also provides insight into the human tendency for mental simulations and mindwandering. As suggested by his work, humans use their experiences, stored in memory, to simulate new, imagined experiences, can later be used as predictive scripts that guide cognition, decisions and action. This concept was first introduced to a broader audience in his 2016 New York Times piece 'Think Less, Think Better', and was later expanded in his book Mindwandering in 2022.

Mood and depression
During his time in the US, Bar’s research interests expanded to include clinical aspects, particularly pertaining to psychiatric disorders such as major depression. He started with a theoretical paper in Trends in Cognitive Sciences in 2009 that presented a synthesis of findings from psychiatry, neuroscience and cognitive psychology. This paper proposed a hypothesis linking mood with thinking patterns and associative processing. Central to this hypothesis is that a thinking pattern that involves a broad associative scope can elicit positive mood, while a narrow and ruminative thinking pattern can evoke negative mood.

Through collaborations first with the department of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital, and since his return to Israel with psychiatric institutions there, this theory has been tested and supported and later implemented as a therapeutic tool, later known as Facilitating Thought Progression (FTP).

Aesthetic preference
Bar's research on aesthetics has implications for design, architecture, and public health. His studies on streetscapes have contributed to design criteria that encourage physical activity. Bar's exploration of the effect of contour, such as smooth versus sharp shapes, on subjective preference and emotion has provided valuable insights for designers and architects.

Changes include more notes and cleaned up language. Also, this section includes the updates compared to the initial request above that were mentioned in my earlier comment here today. I realise this text still may be considered to have some remaining issues. My hope is that this revised version will still be deemed a significant improvement and hence preferrable over the original text. /Urbourbo (talk) 12:56, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Books


Revised edit request based on the bullet list above and the BLPN discussion. /Urbourbo (talk) 14:39, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I made some adjustments (sorting by dates, rming commercial links, doi instead of url), but included this. The case for inclusion would be stronger if there were more reliable source reviews of the books (in particular, this would go towards satisfying WP:NAUTHOR), but the general practice I have seen here is that books from reputable publishers are generally worth including.  A "top three" of journal publications is also worthwhile for someone whose main claim to notability is WP:NPROF C1.  OTOH, I still think that the primary-sourced research description should either be backed to reliable _independent_ sources (so, someone else talking about Bar's work), or else edited with a chainsaw down to a crisply-written paragraph or two. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 15:34, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick refining and resolution here, appreciated. Also noted regarding your concern (shared by others as well) about the research section above, we'll have to get back to that later. All the best, /Urbourbo (talk) 15:43, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Date of birth request
could you please disclose this subject's date or year of birth? I've left the same request at WP:BLPN with further suggestions for adding the information. It's a good basic biographical bit of info you'd expect to find in an encyclopedia entry. JFHJr (㊟) 03:59, 13 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks, as just mentioned here, I've made the same reflection but unfortunately I haven't been able to source this. Do you think it would be OK to add unsourced? If so, I'd be happy to ask if Bar would be willing to share this information with us. Best, /Urbourbo (talk) 16:35, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I think it's fine. Please remember to use the edit summary to include COI so anyone who might oppose it would need to provide info and a better source than you. JFHJr (㊟) 06:34, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, now done! /Urbourbo (talk) 13:46, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Sourcing
Here are some links that might lead to third party coverage in reliable sources to indicate the significance of biographical details: Cheers! JFHJr (㊟) 04:10, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Moshe Bar neuroscientist -


 * Thanks! I believe I've already been using those, but might be able to find time for some more research on the research section. /Urbourbo (talk) 16:34, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Recent editors
Good evening and, Thanks for your recent contributions to this article! I just wanted to point your attention to the two open edit requests above. We've put quite a lot of effort into drafting them (based on input on previous requests), offering citations and several new secondary sources and more. I'm thinking that it would be great to have them reviewed to avoid duplicate work. All the best, /Urbourbo (talk) 17:50, 27 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but it's challenging to see where the original request ends and a new edit request begins. You've placed an open edit request 8 sections above this current section, and there are three closed requests between this section and the open edit request 8 sections above. If we could place new requests at the bottom of the page that would be helpful, then everyone will be able to follow along with the current request. Thank you so much for your help with this, it's much appreciated. Regards, Spintendo  02:38, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * No problem now fixed.  Thanks /Urbourbo (talk) 08:49, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @Spintendo Would you say that the edit requests below are now ready for publishing? Thanks, /Urbourbo (talk) 12:49, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Section: Introduction - new edit request
Moshe Bar (born 1964) is an Israeli cognitive neuroscientist. He is a professor at Bar-Ilan University and the Chief Scientific Officer at the Israeli mental health startup Hedonia. He was previously head of the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University and before that director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Bar’s research focuses on various aspects of brain function, including memory, foresight, mental load, mind-wandering, mood, and creativity. Bar has also contributed to the development of conscious cities, which takes into account the effects of urban design on mental health.

He has published over 80 research articles, edited two scientific books and published the popular science book Mindwandering.

Revised edit request based on the bullet list above. /Urbourbo (talk) 08:45, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Section: Education and professional history - new edit request
Bar completed a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Ben-Gurion University in 1988. Thereafter, in parallel with military service in the Israeli Air Force, he completed a master’s degree in computer science and applied mathematics in 1994 at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he worked under the supervision of Shimon Ullman.

He pursued doctoral studies in psychology at the University of Southern California, under the supervision of Irving Biederman, earning a Ph.D. in 1998. He continued with postdoctoral research at the psychology department at Harvard University, collaborating with Daniel Schacter and Roger Tootel. Since 2000, Bar held a joint faculty appointment at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital as the director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, before returning to Israel in 2011 to head the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University.

Thereafter, in 2021 Bar co-founded the Israeli mental health startup company Hedonia, translating the research-based Facilitating Thought Progression (FTP) method, based on his research on the topic of mood, depression and thought, into mobile games. In 2022 he published the popular science book Mindwandering: How Your Constant Mental Drift Can Improve Your Mood and Boost Your Creativity.

He received the 2012 Donald O. Hebb Award from the International Neural Network Society, and he is a fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists.

Revised edit request based on the bullet lists above. /Urbourbo (talk) 08:48, 31 August 2023 (UTC) Urbourbo (talk) 08:48, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your recent contributions to this article. I noticed your change of the headline for this chapter to "Biography", which makes sense to me. What is your take on the above edit request for that chapter, would it make sense to you? We spent quite some time on it, and I'd love to see the improvements published if you agree. /Urbourbo (talk) 14:05, 8 September 2023 (UTC)


 * ✅ Regards, Spintendo  19:44, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, great to finally se most of this work published. I have just a few questions:
 * I noticed that you excluded the sentence Thereafter, in 2021 Bar co-founded the Israeli mental health startup company Hedonia, translating the research-based Facilitating Thought Progression (FTP) method, based on his research on the topic of mood, depression and thought, into mobile games. I made some further research and found some new secondary sources. Would you agree that publishing this makes sense if adding these?
 * Also excluded was He received the 2012 Donald O. Hebb Award from the International Neural Network Society I'd be curious to understand better the reasons for this?
 * In making the above mentioned exclusions, the subject was (I presume accidentally) referred to by his first name (Moshe). I assume you'd agree to change this to his last name (Bar)?
 * I also noticed that you completely removed the long Career and research chapter. While I realise that a benefit was that you could excluded the primary sources template from top of the article, I would propose to reintroduce this chapter for now but with template:Primary sources section to facilitate for editors to keep working on improving the referencing. Hoping that you might reconsider this.
 * All the best, Urbourbo (talk) 14:55, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I've fixed the error with using his first name instead of his last. With regards to the information regarding the company Hedonia, I would prefer that the company be independently notable before mentioning it here. Also, the Donald O. Hebb award does not appear to be independently notable. If it is, please provide the Wikilink. I removed the Career and reasearch heading because that information did not appear in your draft proposal, and you did not specify that it was to be retained. As it was mostly referenced by the subject's own work (a listing of his publications which can be found elsewhere) the article benefits from its exclusion, per WP:NOTEVERYTHING. Regards, Spintendo  23:03, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, regarding the points above:
 * While I respect your cautiousness here, I do feel that this is obviously a central part of his recent biography, and it would be a pity to remove it already, even if the company itself might not yet have received notability. Would be great to get a second opinion on this. Perhaps raising the issue on the BLPN, or opening a separate edit request including the additional references mentioned. Just let me know if you have any preference here.
 * Ok thanks. Perhaps there are some guidelines supporting this as well?
 * Thanks for fixing the naming error.
 * Thanks for the clarification. There was obviously a misunderstanding here then, as my request above related only to the mentioned biography section. For the research section, as you might remember I created a separate edit request above, which I hope have time to look deeper into later on. Hence, I would prefer if the research section could be restored for now, or otherwise perhaps open a separate discussion about this section.
 * Looking forward to your feedback, Urbourbo (talk) 09:55, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Looking forward to your feedback, Urbourbo (talk) 09:55, 12 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Chiming in as an editor who has worked passingly on the article: 1) I support Spintendo's removal of the primary-sourced section.  While this material may have some value, it is better suited for Bar's website than for wikipedia.  2)  As far as awards, generally only end-of-career career highs should be in the article.  A lifetime achievement award from a smaller academic association that offers three such awards is marginal for this purpose, and I think the award could go either way.  It is surely not a clear include.  (The fellowship should definitely be included, and if the International Neural Network Society gives Bar fellowship, then that should probably also be included.)  3)  As far as the company goes, my opinion is that a very brief and less promotional mention of it could (or could not) go in the body; I will comment that if it is not in the body, then it should also come out of the lede per WP:LEDEFOLLOWSBODY.  The sentence you suggested was a bit overly promotional. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 13:40, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks Russ for chiming in, I'll get back with a revised suggestion for the mention of his recent role shortly. Cheers, /Urbourbo (talk) 15:02, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Revised request
So, here's what I would suggest based on the discussion regarding Bar's more recent biography, decreasing the focus on the company itself to a minimum, hopefully getting rid of the last promotional tone, updating the sources, and also adding another fellowship as I got the impression that Russ Woodrofe felt such were reasonable to add (new additions marked in yellow).

Bar completed a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Ben-Gurion University in 1988. Thereafter, in parallel with military service in the Israeli Air Force, he completed a master’s degree in computer science and applied mathematics in 1994 at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he worked under the supervision of Shimon Ullman.

He pursued doctoral studies in psychology at the University of Southern California, under the supervision of Irving Biederman, earning a Ph.D. in 1998. He continued with postdoctoral research at the psychology department at Harvard University, collaborating with Daniel Schacter and Roger Tootel. Since 2000, Bar held a joint faculty appointment at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital as the director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, before returning to Israel in 2011 to head the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University. There, he and his team developed the Facilitating Thought Progression therapy for treatment of depression and anxiety.

In 2021 Bar co-founded the Israeli startup company Hedonia. In 2022, Bar published the popular science book Mindwandering: How Your Constant Mental Drift Can Improve Your Mood and Boost Your Creativity.

Bar is a fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists and the American Psychological Association.

I hope you will agree that this strikes a reasonable balance. Then I'll be happy to dive deeper into the research section to see if there's anything we can do to improve the sourcing for that. Thanks! /Urbourbo (talk) 17:20, 12 September 2023 (UTC)


 * That previous discussion was closed. The last request you made was implemented. If you have more requests to make, I suggest you make them at the BLP noticeboard. Regards, Spintendo  19:40, 14 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I added the fellowship in the APA to the article -- this is a likely pass of WP:NPROF, and should certainly be in there. I don't think the material on "Facilitating Thought Progression" should go into the article.  I think the activity with Hedonia could go either way, but on looking for sources, coverage is so minimal and the company is so new that it looks better to me to remove from the lede (per WP:LEDEFOLLOWSBODY) rather than add a mention to the body.  If there is a modicum of coverage in a couple of years, then I think this would be a more solid addition then.  Not everything in an article needs to be notable, but I've come upon a lot of bios of scientists that had startup companies that went nowhere -- it'd be good to have some confidence that that won't be the case with this one. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 21:07, 14 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks Russ for weighing in here. Obviously, you didn't come to the conclusion we were hoping for, but we'll see what other sources get published later on and might reopen this discussion then - perhaps at the BLPN. Best, /Urbourbo (talk) 18:44, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

New categories
Would it make sense to add these? Thanks, /Urbourbo (talk) 11:11, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Category:Harvard Medical School faculty
 * Category:Massachusetts General Hospital faculty
 * On second thought, this should be uncontroversial enough for me to add them myself as a COI edit. Hence, doing that now. /Urbourbo (talk) 18:26, 14 September 2023 (UTC)