The realization that our actions have consequences transforms exploration into learning, uncertainty into prediction, and movement into purposeful behavior. From that moment onward, the mind continuously searches for evidence that the world can be predicted and influenced through one’s own actions, gradually building increasingly refined estimates of control.
These estimates become fundamental for understanding the world, adapting behavior, and constructing a sense of self.
We investigate how the fundamental drive to establish and maintain control shapes the human mind. We seek to understand how the mind continuously identifies and estimates control by monitoring the causal relationship between actions and changes in the internal and external environment, how this capacity develops, and varies across individuals, and how these continuously updated estimates shape motor learning, action control, action selection, perception, social interactions, and the experience of the bodily self.
Using behavioral experiments, psychophysics, computational theory, and developmental approaches, we integrate experimental psychology, cognitive science, and developmental science to uncover the principles underlying the fundamental drive for control, the mechanisms through which control is established, and the ways in which established control shapes cognition, action, perception, and conscious experience across typical and atypical development.
We investigate the hypothesis that establishing and maintaining control is a fundamental psychological motivation, distinct from other forms of reward. Our research examines how the motivation for control influences behavior across different levels of action, from simple sensorimotor interactions to complex behavioral decisions, and how it interacts with explicit goals and incentives. We also examine whether individual differences in the value assigned to control contribute to impulsive and maladaptive behavioral choices.
Control shapes far more than motivated behavior. We investigate how establishing control supports procedural learning, adaptive exploration, motor inhibition, cognitive control, and flexible behavior. Our research examines how inferred control influences behavior through both automatic sensorimotor mechanisms and higher-order cognitive processes.
We investigate how control shapes bodily experience and bodily self-consciousness. Our work examines how controlling external events influences the perceived location and boundaries of the body, the experience of bodily sensations such as pain, and the senses of agency and ownership. We ask how control provides an anchor for the embodied self and how variations in bodily self-representation influence the way people seek, establish, and maintain control over their interactions with the environment.
The ability to detect, establish, and use control develops throughout life and varies across individuals. We investigate how sensitivity to control emerges during typical development, how it differs in autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions, and how these differences shape learning, cognition, behavior, and bodily self-representation.
An emerging direction of our research investigates how immediate interpersonal responses and delayed behavioral consequences are integrated to establish interpersonal control, shaping social learning, prediction, and adaptive interaction.
Dr. Noam Karsh is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Psychology at Tel-Hai University, where he also serves as Head of the B.A. Program in Psychology. He received his M.A. in Social Psychology with distinction from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and earned his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Haifa under the supervision of Prof. Baruch Eitam, supported by a doctoral excellence fellowship. He subsequently conducted postdoctoral research in cognitive development at the University of Haifa under the joint supervision of Prof. Batsheva Hadad and Prof. Erez Freud (York University, Canada).
His research integrates experimental, cognitive, and developmental psychology to investigate the cognitive and computational mechanisms underlying human action, control, agency, learning, motivation, and bodily self-consciousness across typical and atypical development.
His research has appeared in journals including Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Cognition, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, and Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
The laboratory is supported each year by undergraduate research assistants who contribute to data collection, programming, and experimental development. We welcome motivated undergraduate students interested in experimental psychology and cognitive science.
data collection
Programming
Experimental development
We regularly host undergraduate research assistants and M.A. students, and we welcome inquiries from prospective Ph.D. students whose interests align with the lab’s research.
We welcome motivated researchers who are interested in experimental
psychology, cognitive science, human action, agency, and the sense of bodily self.
We regularly host undergraduate research assistants and M.A. students, and we welcome inquiries from prospective Ph.D. students whose interests align with the lab’s research.
If you are interested in joining the lab, please visit the Contact page or email us with a brief description of your research interests, a CV, and, if applicable, examples of your recent research.
Karsh Lab for Human Action and Control
School of Psychology
Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee,
Upper Galilee, Kiryat Shemoneh,
Israel, 12210
