Bar completed a
bachelor's degree in
electrical engineering at
Ben-Gurion University in 1988. Thereafter, in parallel with
military service in the
Israeli Air Force, he completed a
master's degree in
computer science and
applied mathematics in 1994 at the
Weizmann Institute of Science, where he worked under the supervision of
Shimon Ullman. He pursued
doctoral studies in
psychology at the
University of Southern California, under the supervision of
Irving Biederman, In 2022 Bar published the
popular science book
Mindwandering: How Your Constant Mental Drift Can Improve Your Mood and Boost Your Creativity. Bar is a fellow of the
Society of Experimental Psychologists and of the
American Psychological Association. In 2021, Bar co-founded the Israeli mental health
startup company Hedonia together with Samuel Keret and Adi Pundak-Mintz, designing therapeutic
mobile games based on a method developed by Bar called Facilitating Thought Progression (FTP), which aims to reduce symptoms of
depression. ==Selected publications==