Deborah Marciano, Ph.D.

September 2023

DEBORAH (DVORAH) MARCIANO

dvorah.marciano@gmail.com
+972-542160704

Education
2019-date University of California, Berkeley, Department of Psychology, Helen Wills Neuroscience
Institute and Haas Business School.
Postdoctoral fellow. PIs: Prof. Robert Knight and Prof. Ming Hsu.
Post-doc research title: The Near Miss Effect: A Window into the Computational and Neural
Mechanisms of Motivation and Satisfaction.
2010-2018 Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Psychology and Federmann Center for the Study
of Rationality.
Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience and program in the Study of Rationality. Advisors: Prof. Shlomo
Bentin, Prof. Leon Deouell, Prof. Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde.
2008-2010 Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Psychology.
MA in Cognitive Neuroscience (summa cum laude).
2005-2008 Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
B.Sc. in Psychobiology and Amirim honors program in the Humanities (member of the Faculty of
Science Dean’s list 2007-2008).
2002-2005 Paris I, Sorbonne.
BA in Law (magna cum laude).
DEUG degree in Economics (magna cum laude).

Research Interests
Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroeconomics, Decision Making, Affective Neuroscience, Behavioral Economics.

Research grants
2019-2021 Mifal HaPais, Israel National Lottery. Is good luck perceived as a limited resource? Exploring the
relationship between luck-related beliefs and pathological gambling. In collaboration with Prof.
Leon Deouell, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem ($36,000).

Scholarships and fellowships

2021-2023 Israel Science Foundation (ISF) postdoctoral fellowship.

2019-2021 Yad Hanadiv (Rothschild) postdoctoral fellowship.
2019-2020 Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship.
2019-2020 Hebrew University’s postdoctoral scholarship for outstanding women doctorate students.
2015-2018 Azrieli Graduate Studies fellowship for outstanding students.
2013 Bettencourt Schueller Foundation grant.
2012-2015 Bard Foundation grant.
2012 Joseph Trink fellowship.
2009-2014 Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality fellowship.
2005-2008 Amirim Scholarship for excellent undergraduate students in humanities.

Travel grants
2022 Society for Neuroscience (SFN) Trainee Professional Development Award.
2021 WIST fund grant.
 Deborah Marciano, Ph.D. September 2023

2016 National Institute for Psychobiology in Israel Travel Scholarship.

2016 Jerusalem Brain Community Travel Scholarship.
2014 Hebrew University Research Students Authority Travel Grant.
2014 Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality Travel Grant.
2010 National University of Singapore - Summer Institute in Behavioral Economics, Student Grant.

Professional experience
2018-2020 Behavioral Economics Consultant for the Israeli arm of the Global Joint Distribution Committee.
2017-2019 Co-organizer of the Behavioral and Experimental Economics Behavior (BEE) seminar, HUJI.
2016-2017 Behavioral Economics Consultant for the Israeli Water Authority.
2013 Doctoral fellow at CNRS.
2010-2019 Research manager of Ratiolab Interactive Decision-Making Laboratories, HUJI.
2010 Visiting Ph.D. student, National University of Singapore, Psychology and Economics
Departments

Professional memberships: Society for Neuroscience; Society for Judgment and Decision Making; Cognitive
Neuroscience Society; Psychonomic Society; Social and Affective Neuroscience Society

Refereeing
European Journal of Neuroscience, Frontiers in Neuroscience, Judgment and Decision Making, Science
Advances, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, reviewer for the SJDM Student Poster Award.

Teaching
2021 UC Berkeley, course Instructor for Clinical Neuroscience (graduate seminar).
2009-2014 Hebrew University of Jerusalem, TA for Statistics (undergraduate). Listed among top teachers of
the Faculty of Social Sciences (2009, 2011).
2008-2011 Icon Psychometric Training Center, teacher for the psychometric exam.
2005-2006 Hebrew University of Jerusalem, volunteer at the Learning Center for the Blind.

Mentoring
Ph.D. students Brooke Staveland (UC Berkeley, Neuroscience, ongoing, advised by Prof. Robert Knight
and Prof. Ming Hsu)
MA theses Shai Shachar (HUJI, Psychology, ongoing, advised by Dr. Anat Perry and Dr. Shoham
Choshen-Hillel)
Ida Mayer (UC Berkeley and Freie Universität Berlin, advised by Prof. Ming Hsu)

BA/BSc seminars Oded Wertheimer (HUJI, Cognitive Sciences, 2019)

Nofar Yishai (HUJI, Psychology, 2018)
Eden Krispin (HUJI, Psychology, 2016)
Research assistants UC Berkeley, training more than 10 RAs to run EEG, behavioral and online studies.
HUJI, RatioLab, training more than 15 RAs to run behavioral economics tasks.

Publications
 Deborah Marciano, Ph.D. September 2023

Marciano, D., Bellier, L., Mayer, I., Ruvalcaba M., Lee, S., Hsu, M., Knight, R.T. Dynamic expectations: Behavioral
and electrophysiological evidence of sub-second updates in reward predictions. (2023) Communications
Biology, 6(1), 1-14.
Marciano, D.*, Staveland, B. R.*, Lin, J. J., Saez, I., Hsu, M., & Knight, R. T. (2023). Electrophysiological signatures
of inequity-dependent reward encoding in the human OFC. Cell Reports, 42(8).
Bellier, L., Llorens, A., Marciano, D., Gunduz, A., Schalk, G., Brunner, P., & Knight, R. T. (2023). Music can be
reconstructed from human auditory cortex activity using nonlinear decoding models. PLoS biology, 21(8),
e3002176.
Llorens, A., Tzovara, A., ... , Marciano, D., ... Dronkers, N. F. (2021). Gender bias in academia: A lifetime problem
that needs solutions. Neuron, 109(13), 2047-2074.
Bigman, Y. E., Yam, K. C., Marciano, D., Reynolds, S. J., & Gray, K. (2021). Threat of racial and economic inequality
increases preference for algorithm decision-making. Computers in Human Behavior, 106859.
Marciano, D., Krispin, E., Bourgeois-Gironde, S., & Deouell, L.Y. (2019) Limited resources or limited luck? Why
people perceive an illusory negative correlation between the outcomes of choice options despite unequivocal
evidence for independence. Judgment and Decision Making, 14 (5), 573-590.
Marciano, D., Bentin, S., & Deouell, L.Y. (2018). Alternative outcomes create biased expectations regarding the
received outcome: evidence from event-related potentials. Neuropsychologia, 113, 126-139.
Hassidim, A., Marciano D., Romm, A., & Shorrer, R. I. (2017) The mechanism is truthful, why aren't you?,
American Economic Review, 107(5):220-24 .
Marciano-Romm, D., Romm, A., Bourgeois-Gironde, S., & Deouell, L. Y. (2016). The Alternative Omen Effect:
Illusory negative correlation between the outcomes of choice options. Cognition, 146, 324-338.

Work in progress

Marciano, D., Bellier, L., Hsu, M., Knight, R.T. Orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate activity during gambling: an
intracranial study.
Marciano, D., Marmor, A., Ruvalcaba M., Knight, R.T. Electrophysiological signatures of dynamic expectations
in older adults.
Marciano, D., Ruvalcaba M., Marmor, A., Knight, R.T. Contribution of subregions of prefrontal cortex to
dynamic expectations: a lesion study.
Marciano, D., Wertheimer, O., Bourgeois-Gironde, S., Deouell, L. Y. Good luck is perceived as a limited resource
in time and space.
Marciano, D., Shachar, S., Perry, A., Choshen‐Hillel, S. Tracking inner conflict in inequity situations: A mouse-
tracking study.

Presentations
Invited talks
Dynamic expectations: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence of sub-second updates in reward
predictions. The Mechanistic Mind: a systems neuroscience symposium, Berkeley, CA, 2023. Best talk award.

From (brain) Waves of Regret to Limited Luck. Tel Aviv University Psychology Colloquium, 2021.

Looks like a bad sign: Illusory negative correlation between the outcomes of choice options. 23rd annual
Rationality Retreat of the Center for the Study of Rationality, Eilat, Israel, 2014.

Is it regret I see in your brain? Centre de Recherche Français (CNRS), Jerusalem, Israel, 2013.
 Deborah Marciano, Ph.D. September 2023

Peer-reviewed presentation in scientific meetings and conferences

Dynamic expectations: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence of sub-second updates in reward
predictions.
Presentation at the 2nd Science Abroad Psychology and Neuroscience Symposium, online, 2023.

Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence of moment-to-moment changes in expectations.

Poster at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, 2023.
Poster at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, 2022.

Moment-to-moment changes in expectations predict happiness.

Poster at the Society for Judgement and Decision-Making Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, 2022.

Good luck is perceived as a limited resource in space and time.

Poster at the Society for Judgement and Decision-Making Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, 2022.

To share or not to share? Intracranial EEG evidence for inequity-dependent encoding in the OFC.
Poster at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting (virtual), 2021.

You left no good luck here for me: good luck is perceived as a limited resource in space.
Poster at the 8th Conference on Cognitive Research of the Israeli Society for Cognitive Psychology (virtual),
2021.
Poster at the Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting (virtual), 2021.

Could have been better, could have been worse: Electrophysiological manifestations of the comparison between
received and alternative outcomes.
Poster at the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA, 2019.
Poster at the Annual Meeting of the National Institute for Psychobiology in Israel, 2017.
Poster at the 14th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroeconomics, Berlin, Germany, 2016.
Poster at the 6th International Symposium on Biology of Decision Making (SBDM), Paris, France, 2016.
Poster at the 3rd Conference on Cognitive Research of the Israeli Society for Cognitive Psychology, 2016.

Why do people perceive an illusory negative correlation between the outcomes of choice options? Exploring the
mechanism of the Alternative Omen Effect.
Presentation at the 26th SPUDM (Subjective Probability, Utility, and Decision Making) Conference, 2017.
Presentation at the 4th Conference on Cognitive Research of the Israeli Society for Cognitive Psychology,
2017.

Looks like a bad sign: EEG and behavioral data reveal a biased perception of correlation between the outcomes
of choice options.
Presentation at the 2nd Conference on Cognitive Research of the Israeli Society for Cognitive Psychology,
2015.
Best Poster Award and flash presentation at the Israel Society for Neuroscience 23rd Annual Meeting, 2015.

Looks like a bad sign: Illusory negative correlation between the outcomes of choice options.
Presentation at the SJDM Annual Meeting, Long Beach, CA, 2014.
Presentation at the 13th Tiber Symposium on Psychology and Economics, Tilburg, Holland, 2014.
Best Poster Award at the Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting, Long Beach, CA, 2014.
Poster at the 1st Conference on Cognitive Research of the Israeli Society for Cognitive Psychology, 2014.
Poster at the 25th Jerusalem School in Economic Theory, 2014.
Poster at HUJI Psychology Department PhD seminar, 2014.
 Deborah Marciano, Ph.D. September 2023

Is it regret I see in your brain?

Poster and flash presentation at the International Conference on Neuroscientific Views on Affect and its
Regulation in Humans, Tel Aviv University, Israel, 2013.
Seminar presentation at Behavioral Economics Workshop, HUJI, Israel, 2013.

Additional research training

2023 Scientific Leadership and Management Skills Course, UC Berkeley, USA. Leadership styles,
people management, inclusive leadership and conflict resolution.

Outreach and extra-curricular activities

2022 Panelist for Winrepo, association for the representation of Women in Neuroscience.
2021 Moderator for the Multilingual Kids Review at the Organization for Human Brain Mapping.
2015-2017 Designed and ran a STEM after-school enrichment program for middle-school girls from low-
income families. Sponsored by the Azrieli Institute for Educational Empowerment.
2010 Volunteer teacher at the Hebrew Sunday School of Singapore, Singapore.

Media coverage
2023 Aperio Magazine https://azrielifoundation.org/aperio-magazine/good-vibrations/

Maternity Leaves
July-September 2013; April-June 2015; September-December 2017; February-May 2022.