Amitai Shenhav is one of eight psychological scientists nationwide to receive the 2020 Janet Taylor Spence Award from the Association for Psychological Science (APS). 

The award recognizes APS members who have made transformative early-career contributions to psychological science.

Shenhav, an assistant professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences who is affiliated with the Carney Institute for Brain Science, studies computational neuroscience, decision-making, and neuroeconomics.

Shenhav’s research is focused on examining the computational and neural mechanisms at the intersection between decision-making and cognitive control, with a particular focus on how people weigh the costs and benefits of engaging in cognitively demanding tasks. His most recent study, published in October 2019, identified distinct cognitive and neural processes underlying people’s evaluation of potential rewards.