Maya Bar-Hillel (; born 1943) is a professor emeritus of psychology at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

. Known for her work on inaccuracies in human reasoning about

probability Probability is a branch of mathematics and statistics concerning events and numerical descriptions of how likely they are to occur. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1; the larger the probability, the more likely an e ...

, she has also studied

decision theory Decision theory or the theory of rational choice is a branch of probability theory, probability, economics, and analytic philosophy that uses expected utility and probabilities, probability to model how individuals would behave Rationality, ratio ...

in connection with

Newcomb's paradox In philosophy and mathematics, Newcomb's paradox, also known as Newcomb's problem, is a thought experiment involving a game between two players, one of whom is able to predict the future with near-certainty. Newcomb's paradox was created by Will ...

, investigated how

gender stereotyping A gender role, or sex role, is a social norm deemed appropriate or desirable for individuals based on their gender or sex. Gender roles are usually centered on conceptions of masculinity and femininity. The specifics regarding these gendered ...

can block human problem-solving, and worked with

Dror Bar-Natan Dror Bar-Natan (; born January 30, 1966) is a professor at the University of Toronto Department of Mathematics, Canada. His main research interests include knot theory, finite type invariants, and Khovanov homology. Education Bar-Natan earned his ...

Gil Kalai Gil Kalai (; born 1955) is an Israeli mathematician and computer scientist. He is the Henry and Manya Noskwith Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, professor of computer science at the Interdisciplinary Center ...

, and Brendan McKay to debunk the

Bible code The Bible code (, ), also known as the Torah code, is a purported set of encoded words within a Hebrew text of the Torah that, according to proponents, has predicted significant historical events. The statistical likelihood of the Bible code a ...

Education and career

Bar-Hillel studied psychology with

Amos Tversky Amos Nathan Tversky (; March 16, 1937 – June 2, 1996) was an Israeli cognitive and mathematical psychologist and a key figure in the discovery of systematic human cognitive bias and handling of risk. Much of his early work concerned th ...

at the Hebrew University, where she earned bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics and a Ph.D. in psychology. Her 1975 doctoral dissertation, ''The Base-Rate Fallacy in Subjective Judgments of Probability'', introduced the concept of the

base rate fallacy The base rate fallacy, also called base rate neglect or base rate bias, is a type of fallacy in which people tend to ignore the base rate (e.g., general prevalence) in favor of the individuating information (i.e., information pertaining only to a ...

in probabilistic reasoning. At the Hebrew University, she was the director of the Center for the Study of Rationality from 2001 to 2005.

Family

Bar-Hillel is the daughter of Israeli philosopher and linguist

Yehoshua Bar-Hillel Yehoshua Bar-Hillel (; 8 September 1915 – 25 September 1975) was an Israeli philosopher, mathematician, and linguist. He was a pioneer in the fields of machine translation and formal linguistics. Early life and education Born Oscar Westreich ...

. Her daughter,

Gili Bar-Hillel Gili Bar-Hillel Semo (; born Gili Bar-Hillel on 19 October 1974) is an English-Hebrew translator from Israel, best known for translating the ''Harry Potter'' series into Hebrew. Biography Bar-Hillel is the daughter of Maya Bar-Hillel, a professor ...

, is the Hebrew translator of the

Harry Potter ''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven Fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...

books.

Recognition

Bar-Hillel won the

Rothschild Prize Yad Hanadiv (The Rothschild Foundation) is a Rothschild family philanthropic foundation in Israel. Goals and objectives Yad Hanadiv defines its mission as: Dedicated to creating resources for advancing Israel as a healthy, vibrant, democratic so ...

for

Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

in 2018, and the

George Pólya Award The George Pólya Award is presented annually by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) for articles of expository excellence that have been published in The College Mathematics Journal. The award was established in 1976, and up to two aw ...

of the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...

with

Ruma Falk Ruma Falk (, née Oren-Aharonovich, 1932–2020) was an Israeli psychologist and philosopher of mathematics known for her work on probability theory and human understanding of probability and statistics. Falk was born in Jerusalem, and educate ...

in 1984 for their joint work on probability.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bar-Hillel, Maya 1943 births Living people Israeli psychologists Israeli women psychologists Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem