I am a doctoral candidate in Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. My research examines empathy as a multidimensional, dyadic process, focusing on how visual, vocal, and semantic information shape core components of empathic interaction: how one person understands another’s emotions and responds affectively, how the target experiences being emotionally understood and responded to, and how a shared emotional experience emerges between interaction partners. I further investigate how these interpersonal empathic processes relate to relationship quality and psychological well-being. My work spans both neurotypical and autistic populations and employs a multidisciplinary approach that integrates behavioral paradigms, psychophysiological and EEG measures, and advanced statistical modeling.

 

Publications:

Genzer, S., Rubin, R., Sened, H., Rafaeli, E., Ochsner, K., Cohen, N., & Perry, A. (in press). Directional bias in interpersonal emotion perception. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-66879-2. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/v6js4_v1

Rum, Y., * Genzer, S.,* Golan, O., Allison, C., Baron-Cohen, S., & Perry, A. (2025). Empathy and interest towards an autistic person and the effect of disclosing the diagnosis. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 1-15.‏ https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-025-06802-2

*Contributed equally

Lehmann, M., Genzer, S., Kassem, N., Van Tongeren, D. R., & Perry, A. (2025). Intellectual Humility Predicts Empathic Accuracy and Empathic Resilience. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672241313427

Ben Adiva, Y., Genzer, S., & Perry, A. (2024). Beyond physical sensations: investigating empathy and prosocial behavior in vicarious pain responders. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 19(1), nsae039. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsae039

Genzer, S., Ben Adiva, Y., & Perry, A. (2023). Empathy: From Perception to Understanding and Feeling Others' Emotions (Elements in Perception). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781009281072

Inbar, M., Genzer, S., Perry, A., Grossman, E., & Landau, A. N. (2023). Intonation Units in spontaneous speech evoke a neural response. The Journal of Neuroscience, 43(48), JN-RM-0235-23. https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.0235-23.2023

Jospe, K., Genzer, S., Manson, L., Ong, D., Zaki, J., Soroker, N., & Perry, A. (2022). Impaired empathic accuracy following damage to the left hemisphere. Biological Psychology, 172, 108380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108380

Choshen-Hillel, S., Sadras, I., Gordon-Hecker, T., Genzer, S., Rekhtman, D., Caruso, E. M., Clements, K. L., Ohler, A., Gozal, D., Israel, S., Perry, A., & Gileles-Hillel, A. (2022). Nightshift bias in pain management: Physicians in the emergency department experience less empathy for patients' pain and prescribe fewer analgesics during nightshifts. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 119(27). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2200047119

Genzer, S., Ong, D. C., Zaki, J., & Perry, A. (2022). Mu rhythm suppression over sensorimotor regions is associated with greater empathic accuracy. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 17(9), 788-801. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsac011

Rum, Y., Genzer, S., Perry, A., Markovitch, N., Jenkins, J., & Knafo-Noam, A. (2022). Are there positive effects of having a sibling with a disability? The development of empathy in children. Child Development, 93(4), 1121-1128. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13740

Mandelkorn, U.,* Genzer, S.,* Choshen-Hillel, S., Reiter, J., Meira e Cruz, M., Hochner, H., Kheirandish-Gozal, L., Gozal, D., & Gileles-Hillel, A. (2020). Escalation of sleep disturbances amid the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional international study. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 17(1), 45-53. https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.8800

*Contributed equally

Jospe, K., Genzer, S., Klein Selle, N., Ong, D., Zaki, J., & Perry, A. (2020). The contribution of linguistic and visual cues to physiological synchrony and empathic accuracy. Cortex, 132, 296-308.‏ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.09.001