Daniel Revach

I obtained my BSc in Cognitive Neuroscience, Psychology and Linguistics from Ben Gurion University in Israel, and my MSc in Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology from the University of Oxford. I then worked as a research assistant at the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion (CSSC) at Oxford, before starting my DPhil. My research interests and output have included the neurocognitive basis of consciousness, the psycholinguistics of perception, and group identity and intergroup relations in conflict settings.

My doctorate research focuses on the sensory and affective properties of recalled conflict experiences and their relation to group identity and intergroup relations.

Specifically, my goal is to investigate whether experiences in conflict settings are recalled and retold as vivid episodic auobiographical memories, rich in sensory and affective properties, and how these properties relate to the experience's impact on the experiencer's group identity and ougroup attitudes. I'm also interested in how sensory and affective properties can be utilised to improve intergroup attitudes when presenting experiences to outgroup members. Overall, my research aims to understand through language how conflict and memory can impact individuals, groups, and intergrop relations.

To do so, I am developing methods based on natural language processing and large language models. With them, I examine and employ experiences from Northern Irish Catholics and Protestants, Balinese Hindus, and Israelis and Palestinians, relying primarily on observational and experimental surveys. My work adopts an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on theories of identity fusion and imagistic modes, as well as social identity, (mediated) contact hypothesis, and embodied cognition.