Shahar Arzy
Director, Computational Neuropsychiatry Lab
Hadassah Medical Center

“What makes our lives significant?”

Our lives are shaped by meaningful events, relationships, and places — elements that that are making them worthy to live. But what is the cognitive architecture underlying this elusive yet foundational concept? How can significance be defined, measured, and modeled within the human mind? In this talk, I will explore the cognitive construct of significance across three core experiential dimensions: time, space, and social relationships. I will examine whether significance is underpinned by distinct cognitive and computational principles, how it manifests across different populations, and what role it plays in both healthy cognition and various neuropsychiatric conditions. Drawing on behavioral studies, neuroimaging data, computational modeling, and clinical observations, I will outline a multidimensional framework for understanding significance as a unifying construct—one that integrates memory, affect, and self-representation. Ultimately, this inquiry aims to shed light on how the brain encodes what makes a life significant.