Dr. Nurit Gronau

Updated: September 2009


Line

Contact Information

Department of Psychology
The Open University of Israel
The Dorothy de Rothschild Campus
1 University Road, P. O. Box 808, Raanana 43107
Telephone Tel: 972-9-778-1468
Fax Fax: 972-9-778-0632
Email E-mail: nuritgro@openu.ac.il

Back

Education

1998-2004 Ph.D., Cognitive Psychology, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
1995-1997 M.A. (magna cum laude), Neuropsychology, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
1992-1994 B.A. (magna cum laude), Psychology & Musicology, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Back

Academic Appointments

2007-present Senior lecturer, The Open University of Israel
2004-2007 Post-doctoral fellow, Harvard Medical School and Martinos Center for Neuroimaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA

Back

Fields of Research

  • Functional neuroimaging of visual object recognition
  • Effects of visual context on object recognition
  • Visual attention
  • Psychopysiological (polygraph) detection of concealed information (see http://www.eprodd.net/)

Back

Honors and Academic Awards

2004-2005 Fulbright Grant for Post-Doctoral studies
2004-2005 Hebrew University Fellowship for Post-Doctoral studies
2000-2003 Rector Excellency Fellowship for PhD
1996 Rector Prize for M.A.
1995-1996 Psychology Department Excellency Scholarship for M.A.
1992-1994 Dean's list

Back

Sponsored Research

2009 Young Investigator Research Grant, The National Institute for Psychobiology in Israel: The role of global contextual factors in visual object perception: an fMRI study.
2008-2009 The Open University Research Fund: Contextual and functional associations reduce competition between unattended objects: an fMRI study.

Back

Publications

Line

List of Publications

Gronau, N., Cohen, A., & Ben-Shakhar, G. (2009). Distractor interference in focused attention tasks is not mediated by attention capture. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(9), 1685-1695.
Meijer, E.H., Verschuere, B., Vrij, A., Merckelbach, H., Smulders, F., Leal, S., Ben-Shakhar, G., Granhag, P.A., Gamer, M., Gronau, N., Vossel, G., Crombez, G., & Spence, S. (2009). A call for evidence-based security tools. Open Access Journal of Forensic Psychology, 1, 1-4.
Gronau, N., Neta, M., & Bar, M. (2008). Integrated contextual representation for objects’ identities and their locations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(3), 371–388.
Aminoff, E., Gronau, N., & Bar, M. (2007).  The parahippocampal cortex mediates spatial and non-spatial associations. Cerebral Cortex, 27, 1493-1503.
Gronau, N., Sequerra, E., Cohen, A., & Ben-Shakhar, G. (2006). The effect of novel distractors on focused-attention tasks: A cognitive-psychophysiological approach. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13(4), 570-575.
Fenske, M.J., Aminoff, E., Gronau, N., & Bar, M. (2006). Top-down facilitation of visual object recognition: Object-based and context-based contributions.  Progress in Brain Research, 155, 3-21.
Gronau, N., Ben-Shakhar, G., & Cohen, A. (2005). Behavioral and physiological measures in the detection of concealed information. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(1), 147-158.
Gronau, N., Cohen, A., & Ben-Shakhar, G. (2003). Dissociations of personally-significant and task-relevant distractors inside and outside the focus of attention: A combined behavioral and psychophysiological study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 132(4), 512–529.
Ben-Shakhar, G., Gronau, N., & Elaad, E. (1999). Leakage of relevant information to innocent examinees in the GKT: an attempt to reduce false-positive outcomes by introducing target stimuli. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(5), 651-660. 
Gronau, N. & Frost, R. (1997). Prelexical phonologic computation in deep orthography: Evidence from backward masking in Hebrew. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 4(1), 107.

Back

Open University Publications (in Hebrew)

Gronau, N. (in press). Cognitive neuropsychology. In Cognitive Psychology (Unit 6), The Open University of Israel, Raanana.
Gronau, N., Hariston, I., Lavie, R., & Raanan, Z. (1998). Foundations of Behavioral Neuroscience. Text for CD-ROM directed by U. Hasson & Y. Shavit, The Open University of Israel, Tel-Aviv.

Back

Conference Presentations

Gronau, N. Visual recognition: perceiving the 'gist' or the details in multiple object displays? The Psychonomic Society annual meeting, Boston, MA, Novermber, 2009.
Gronau, N. Visual recognition is guided by expectations about object identity and location. ICNC international workshop on Dynamic Perception, Communication and Action, Jerusalem, June, 2008.
Gronau, N. & Bar, M. Integrated Contextual Representation for Objects’ Identities and their Locations. The Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, SD, CA, November, 2007.
Gronau, N., Neta, M., & Bar, M. Visual associative processing is mediated by unified representations for semantic and spatial knowledge. Tenth International Conference on Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston, MA, May, 2006.
Gronau, N., Neta, M., & Bar, M. Visual Associative processing is mediated by representations that bind semantic and spatial information. Cognitive Neuroscience Society annual meeting, SF, CA, April, 2006.
Gronau, N., Neta, M., & Bar, M. The effect of spatial and semantic contextual information on visual object recognition. Cognitive Neuroscience Society annual meeting, NY, NY, April, 2005.
Ben-Shakhar, G., Gronau, N. & Cohen, A. Behavioral and physiological measures in the detection of guilty knowledge. The 43rd annual meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research, Chicago, Ill. October, 2003. Psychophysiology, 40, S10.
Gronau, N., Cohen, A., & Ben Shakhar, G. Significance and Task-relevance: implications for the spotlight of attention. The 13th conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCOP), Granada, September 2003.
Cohen, A., Gronau, N. & Ben Shakhar, G. The role of personal importance in attention capture:  A combined behavioral and psychophysiological study.  The 43nd Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Orlando, November, 2002.
Gronau, N., Cohen, A., & Ben Shakhar, G. Does personally significant information capture attention? On the dissociation between endogenous and exogenous factors of visual attention. The Israeli Psychological Association.  Jerusalem, July, 2002.
Ben-Shakhar, G., Gronau, N. & Elaad, E. Effects of exposure of relevant information to innocent subjects on the efficiency of the GKT: An attempt to reduce false-positive outcomes by introducing target stimuli. The 37th annual meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research, Cape Cod, Mass., October, 1997, Psychophysiology, 34, S20.

Back