From Alessandro Treves

A quarter of a century ago, when as a physics student in Jerusalem I was trying to link up with neuroscience, Shlomo Bentin gave what I think was the first psychology talk I heard in my life, and it impressed me that the brain could be approached from the other direction, from the perspective of mental processes. I then lost track of him for a long time, until he surprised me a couple of years ago, when he demonstrated with Itamar Lerner and Oren Shriki how latching dynamics could be turned from an abstract notion, of appeal only to former physicists, into a concrete model of priming and other phenomena of the mind. On the spur of this re-acquaintance, he agreed to come to Trieste to serve as an examiner for Valentina, the first student to work with me on an experimental psychology Phd Thesis; and very tactfully hinted at all the good advice that Valentina would have benefited receiving from a real advisor. Over a pizza near Piazza dell'Unita', we latched on the same couple of Israeli friends; but we realized we were out-of-phase, as we would get to Tel Aviv at the same time as Shlomo and Miri would go to Berkeley. We set an appointment in Tel Aviv in the fall of 2012. The next link in our latching chain will be in the space of ideas.