Negli ultimi decenni, l’intersezione tra Intelligenza Artificiale (IA) e gamification ha profondamente trasformato i settori dell’istruzione, dell’apprendimento e della valutazione neuropsicologica. La presente tesi, intitolata "Exploring the Psychometric Dimensions: Theoretical and Practical Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Gamification in Education, Learning, and...
Gli esseri umani si affidano a principi morali per orientare molti dei loro giudizi e delle loro scelte quotidiane. Tuttavia, tali principi non sono universali: possono variare da individuo a individuo e, talvolta, entrare in conflitto, generando risposte diverse anche di fronte a situazioni simili. È frequente, infatti, imbattersi in dilemmi morali, ossia situazioni complesse in cui due o più...
The sense of agency refers to the subjective awareness of controlling one’s actions and their effects on the environment. This experience comprises two distinct dimensions: the explicit metacognitive judgment of agency and the implicit sensorimotor feeling of agency.
Different neurocognitive models have been proposed to explain how the agency experience arises, varying in the weight assigned...
La traslazione in medicina, o medicina traslazionale, è un approccio che facilita il trasferimento rapido delle scoperte scientifiche dalla ricerca di base alla pratica clinica, e viceversa. Nell’ambito delle neuroscienze cliniche questo tipo di approccio richiede un processo di ‘decostruzione’ della condizione patologica in dimensioni psicologiche specifiche da manipolare sperimentalmente in...
In recent years, researchers in cognitive enhancement and rehabilitation have increasingly focused on neurostimulation techniques, aiming to develop effective methods that are minimally invasive and associated with few side effects. In this context, transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) has gained growing attention for its potential benefits on cognitive functions in both...
Cognitive decline, which can manifest as memory loss, attention difficulties, and reduced executive function, represents a significant challenge for aging populations. While traditional cognitive interventions have focused primarily on mental processes, recent research highlights the importance of integrating cognitive and bodily stimulation to address this complex issue. A growing body of...
Recent advances in cognitive neuroscience increasingly focus on how memory functions in response to rich, temporally extended experiences that approximate the complexity and continuity of everyday life. This symposium brings together recent EEG and fMRI studies investigating the neural correlates of episodic and semantic memory using ecologically grounded paradigms and stimuli, including...
Introduzione. È noto che la simmetria influenzi i giudizi estetici. Abbiamo indagato se la sua influenza sulla preferenza estetica sia generalizzata o se invece vari fra diverse categorie di oggetti: forme angolari, forme curve, paesaggi, paesaggi offuscati tramite filtri, fiori, volti femminili e volti maschili. Un’ipotesi è che la simmetria contribuisca alla bellezza di un oggetto (es....
Il titolo del simposio, Psicologia dell'arte e neuroestetica, è lo stesso che dà il nome al gruppo tematico AIP, costituitosi nel 2022, che raccoglie studiosi italiani che lavorano su diversi temi propri della psicologia dell’arte e dell’estetica empirica (arte-visiva, musica, danza ecc.) utilizzando approcci e paradigmi di ricerca differenti. Il gruppo tematico e quindi il simposio hanno lo...
Il senso di responsabilità è un costrutto fondamentale nella vita individuale e sociale, che implica la capacità di monitorare, valutare e giustificare le proprie azioni e le loro conseguenze. In questo simposio vengono presentati approcci e risultati che affrontano il tema della responsabilità da una prospettiva multilivello, esplorando i processi sensori-motori, cognitivi e morali che lo...
Objects semantically inconsistent with their surrounding scene typically attract attention (i.e., looked at earlier and for longer) and elicit a fronto-central N400 response, reflecting the cognitive effort to resolve contextual mismatches. Yet, it remains unresolved how much semantic information can be extracted before direct fixation, and whether similar extrafoveal processing mechanisms are...
The studies presented investigate how physiological and pathological fatigue interact with predictive motor mechanisms underpinning the sense of agency (SoA)—the feeling of controlling one’s actions and their consequences (1). A key aspect of these predictive processes is sensory attenuation (SA), the reduced perception of self-generated stimuli, which serves to distinguish between self- and...
Il modello “Sign-Tracking/Goal-Tracker” (ST/GT) è un modello animale per lo studio delle differenze individuali nel processo di attribuzione della motivazione condizionata a stimoli associati a ricompense, un processo che in alcuni individui può contribuire ad istigare una ricerca incontrollata delle ricompense, come nei disturbi da dipendenza da sostanze. In un compito di apprendimento...
Il linguaggio verbale, sia nelle sue incarnazioni artistiche più riuscite sia nelle sue manifestazioni più prosaiche e quotidiane, suscita sempre in noi un ampio ventaglio di risposte valutative: dalla sensazione che una certa espressione linguistica sia ben riuscita a quella che sia mal formulata, dal piacere al dispiacere, dalla confusione alla noia, dalla suspense al senso di risoluzione....
Group-based cognitive stimulation (CS) intervention is the most recommended psychosocial intervention in clinical guidelines for people with mild-to-moderate dementia. However, literature showing the effectiveness did not provide information about the aspects of people who are most likely to benefit from. This study aims to identify the cognitive and non-cognitive aspects of people with...
Highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM) is a rare condition characterized by an extraordinary ability to recall autobiographical information with remarkable accuracy and detail. While previous studies have begun to explore the neural correlates of HSAM, the role of brain oscillations in this phenomenon remains largely unexplored. In this study, we examined an individual with HSAM and...
Sense of agency (SoA), namely the feeling of being the author of our actions is a presequite for experience responsibility. In four studies, I applied different experimental manipulations to investigate the influence of different sensorimotor and cognitive cues on the experience of agency. To do so, I took advantage of a validated temporal judgment task (Zapparoli 2020a, 2020b), whereby...
La lettura è un'abilità complessa il cui sviluppo deriva dall'interazione gene x ambiente (GxE) attraverso meccanismi epigenetici (e.g. miR).
Il gene DCDC2 è stato associato a variazioni interindividuali nelle prestazioni di lettura e nella percezione del movimento.
Alterazioni dell'equilibrio eccitatorio/inibitorio (E/I) e della plasticità neuronale all'interno della via...
The ability to organize events in time is a hallmark of episodic memory. While fMRI studies have linked the entorhinal-hippocampal network to temporal judgments and event structure representation, less is known about the broader neural mechanisms supporting these abilities. This EEG study investigated whether temporal memory precision and temporal representation of event structure are related,...
Guardando opere d’arte gli studiosi di psicologia di scuole e formazione varia spesso colgono aspetti che sembrano spiegare la natura di certe scelte formali e/o contenutistiche operate dagli artisti. Sulla scorta di tali aspetti, che il più delle volte hanno valore indiziario, procedono quindi ad analizzare le opere e a spiegare i motivi dietro quelle scelte, profondamenti convinti delle...
The global population is aging rapidly, leading to a rising prevalence of cognitive decline. Aging presents major challenges for individuals and societies, driving research into pharmacological and non-pharmacological intervention therapies. Cognitive interventions show promising effectiveness, although high variability in research protocols limits the generalizability of results.
For this...
This contribution explores how the social dimension of the Sense of Agency—specifically the shared Sense of Agency (s-SoA)—influences moral behavior and intergroup decision-making. Through two experimental studies, I examined how interpersonal coordination shapes the experience of agency and responsibility, and how these processes, in turn, affect conformity to immoral actions and intergroup...
Sexual behavior is a natural and highly reinforcing behavior that can be divided in two main components: the appetitive/motivational and the consummatory one. Neurobiological studies involving animal models, mainly rodents, identified a complex brain circuit responsible for the regulation of different aspects of sexual behavior, in which dopamine seems to play a key role in motivation by...
The studies presented examine how changes in bodily representation and identity-related features can influence self-perception and moral standards. The embodiment illusion—the sensation of owning and controlling a virtual avatar—typically arises through synchronous body movements, a first-person perspective, and the avatar’s appearance. Modulating these parameters can affect...
The mnemonic representation of complex events is multidimensional. Although it has been shown that the recollection of complex events jointly recruits the Default Mode Network (DMN) and the FrontoParietal Control Network (FPCN), the extent to which activity within these networks varies according to specific memory dimensions (e.g., what, where, when) remains underexplored. To address this, the...
Introduzione
Il progetto PRIN 2022 PNRR NEURO-Museum, finanziato dall’Unione Europea (NEXT GENERATION EU) e condotto da Sapienza Università di Roma e Politecnico di Torino, ha indagato nuove forme di culture wellbeing nei musei, analizzando come spazio, narrazione ed emozioni possano favorire un senso di appropriazione personale del patrimonio culturale. Questo studio ha confrontato gli...
Peripersonal space (PPS) refers to the space immediately surrounding the body and plays a crucial role in motor interaction and defensive behavior. Furthermore, PPS has been linked to the bodily self and shown to be highly plastic: its boundaries can be modulated physically (e.g., spinal cord injury, amputation, tool use), perceptually (e.g., mindfulness, interoception, sensory deprivation)...
Traditional accounts describe semantic memory as static and crystallized, often overlooking its episodic origins. Recent theories suggest that conceptual knowledge may emerge from low-dimensional, Cartesian-like representational space (Bellmund, 2018), potentially supported by medial parietal regions (Bottini&Doeller, 2020). However, empirical evidence, especially with high-dimensional,...
Introduzione. Numerosi studi dimostrano che la fruizione dell’arte può avere un impatto positivo sulla salute e il benessere. Questa ricerca ha l’obiettivo di indagare come diversi approcci di fruizione dell'arte, in un contesto museale, possano influenzare il benessere e l'esperienza estetica.
Metodo. Due gruppi di partecipanti (N = 134; 71 gruppo “discussione”, 63 gruppo “libero”) hanno...
Introduzione. Nell’invecchiamento sano, le abilità comunicative possono subire un deterioramento che non riguarda solo gli aspetti linguistici di base, ma anche la pragmatica, ovvero la capacità di usare il linguaggio e altri mezzi espressivi in modo adeguato al contesto sociale. Sebbene la letteratura suggerisca un declino pragmatico legato all’invecchiamento, mancano studi longitudinali...
The present contribution aims to provide initial insights from the “ARCADE” PRIN project. Adopting a multi-technique approach that combines observational analysis with simulation methods, the project brings together the expertise of three Research Units (RUs – Rome, Turin, and Padua) in the fields of Road Engineering and Psychology. The objective is to identify behavioral, psychological, and...
Time perception is a fundamental cognitive function that plays a crucial role in coordinating behavior and interacting with the environment. Explicit and implicit timing represent two distinct yet partially overlapping processes, with explicit timing involving conscious estimation of intervals and implicit timing relying on automatic processing of temporal regularities. Aging is associated...
Conspiracy theories attempt to explain the underlying causes of major socio-political events by attributing them to secret plots. This suggests the importance of tackling conspiracy beliefs from a multidimensional perspective and moving beyond explicit methods, which often fail to capture the complexity and implicit nature of conspiracy beliefs. To address this issue, two conceptualizations...
Introduction: The effect of placebos on task-related physical fatigue and brain activity remains underexplored yet relevant to dissect. This study investigates the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying motor placebo effects and their impact on fatigue at both central and peripheral levels, using Readiness Potential (RP) as an electrophysiological (EEG) central measure and Median Frequency...
Introduzione
L’efficacia di interventi di clown dottori in contesti ospedalieri è un risultato consolidato in letteratura, mentre indagini sulle caratteristiche psicologiche dei clown dottori sono scarse. La ricerca qui presentata si propone di indagare le relazioni tra stili comici preferiti dai clown dottori, il loro grado di giocosità e flessibilità cognitiva.
Metodo
Un campione di 210...
In manual manufacturing processes, assembly tasks involve not only physical effort but also cognitive demands. While physical workload has been extensively investigated, the anticipatory assessment of mental workload remains a relatively underexplored domain. This contribution presents a theoretical framework aimed at mapping the specific cognitive and executive functions involved in...
Organizational decision-making (DM) is a multifaceted process influenced by both cognitive and social variables. Among these, the construction of Self-Relevance (SR) – the subjective significance attributed to a decision by an individual – has received limited attention in neuroscience, particularly in applied workplace settings. This study aimed to explore the behavioural and...
Introduzione. L’invecchiamento comporta un declino progressivo di funzioni cognitive come memoria, attenzione, funzioni esecutive (FE) e Teoria della Mente (ToM), con impatti sull’abilità comunicativo-pragmatica. Tuttavia, la relazione tra queste abilità non è ancora completamente chiara. Nonostante l’influenza della pragmatica sull'autonomia e sulla qualità della vita, la ricerca sul suo...
La creatività è un costrutto complesso che coinvolge sia la produzione di idee originali che la valutazione della creatività delle idee stesse. Mentre la produzione creativa si riferisce alla capacità di generare idee nuove e appropriate, la valutazione della creatività riguarda l'abilità di riconoscere e giudicare il valore creativo di un'idea o di un prodotto. Questa distinzione è cruciale,...
Cinematographic editing influences how viewers perceive time, yet the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain underexplored. This study examined the role of the supplementary motor area (SMA) in shaping temporal perception during film viewing using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Forty-eight participants were assigned to one of three tDCS...
La letteratura sul bilinguismo suggerisce che le parole tabù (ovvero socialmente inappropriate) suscitino risposte più intense nella lingua nativa (L1) rispetto alla seconda lingua (L2). Il presente studio indaga tale ipotesi in un campione di parlanti bilingui italiano(L1)-inglese(L2), a medio-alata competenza nella L2. È stata utilizzata una procedura di progressive demasking, in cui una...
We present DiffuseFace, a database of AI-generated face portraits designed to address limitations of traditional databases and enhance diversity in emotion studies. Traditional databases, such as CEED (Benda & Scherf, 2020) and FACES (Ebner et al., 2010), typically include photographs of real actors captured in controlled environments. While invaluable, their creation demands substantial time...
Nel compito di decisione lessicale, il partecipante deve riconoscere se gli stimoli sono parole o non-parole. Nel presente studio, si è indagato se queste due categorie di stimoli siano associate a dinamiche decisionali differenti, focalizzandosi sull'esecuzione motoria della risposta. Sono state impiegate 5 categorie di stimoli: parole di alta frequenza, parole di bassa frequenza,...
According to the neural overlap hypothesis (Fias et al., 2001) magnitude information is automatically extracted from digits when there is a sufficient degree of neural overlap of structures dedicated to the processing of relevant and irrelevant information. Specifically, since the semantic information of numbers is processed in parietal areas, processing a visual feature with high parietal...
Aim: Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember future intentions, which is influenced by cue relevance in the ongoing task. Prospective memory tasks can be focal, with cues promoting automatic retrieval, or non-focal, requiring strategic monitoring. This study examined performance on focal and non-focal PM tasks under dual-task conditions, combining a Lexical Decision Task (LDT) and a...
Visual and auditory signals from a common source are typically integrated into a unified percept despite slight asynchronies—a phenomenon central to audiovisual (AV) speech perception. While this integration facilitates speech comprehension, it remains unclear how emotional context affects crossmodal binding. In two experiments, participants performed either a simultaneity judgment (SJ;...
Understanding cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying quantity processing is crucial for unraveling human cognition. The existence of a single magnitude system, encompassing non-symbolic number estimation alongside other magnitudes like time and space, is still highly debated since clear evidence is limited. Recent research examined whether spatial biases also influence numerosity...
The Spatial-Numerical Associations of Response Codes (SNARC) effect describes the spatial relationship between number magnitude and response side, with small numbers associated with the left space and large numbers with the right space (Dehaene et al., 1993). Typically, the SNARC effect is studied on simple movements, and it is revealed by spatial response tasks through response time...
In the field of sports science, eye tracking has emerged as a crucial tool for investigating the visual and cognitive mechanisms underlying athletic performance. However, current literature highlights a significant gap, namely the limited number of eye-tracking studies conducted during live game situations. The majority of existing research has focused on controlled game scenarios.
The aim...
Hormones play a crucial role in shaping the sensitivity and intensity of
disgust responses, with these effects varying based on sex and other
physiological factors. These mechanisms are deeply rooted in evolutionary
processes, where disgust serves as a protective function, helping to avoid
potential physical or social harm. Literature highlighted that women tend to
exhibit higher disgust...
Placebo research has primarily focused on the pain domain, aiming to develop strategies that improve patients’ conditions by enhancing clinical outcomes and preserving a positive therapeutic context. When this context is misperceived, however, it can instead trigger distress and fear. Building on this foundation, expanding placebo research into other domains could provide valuable insights...
Introduzione: La Teoria della Mente (ToM) è un costrutto complesso che si articola in diverse componenti, i.e. ToM cognitiva e affettiva, di primo e di I-II ordine, del quale è documentato un declino nell’invecchiamento. Quest’abilità ha una complessa interazione con altre funzioni cognitive, tra cui le Funzioni Esecutive (FEs), che a loro volta subiscono un deterioramento...
Alla luce delle teorie dell’embodied cognition (Goldman & de Vignemont, 2009) e delle recenti prospettive teoriche che enfatizzano il ruolo dell’interocezione nei processi cognitivi (Azzalini et al., 2019), questo studio propone un nuovo training centrato sulle rappresentazioni mentali del corpo (RMC), funzionali e interocettive, valutandone l’efficacia nel potenziare diverse abilità in età...
The Sniffin’ Sticks Test (SST) is one of the most widely used tools for assessing olfactory function in research and clinical settings. However, despite its widespread use, a detailed psychometric evaluation of its items remains limited. Understanding the item functioning within the identification subtest is crucial to ensure the test's reliability, validity, and applicability across different...
Introduzione. Il declino cognitivo nell’invecchiamento coinvolge memoria, funzioni esecutive e velocità di elaborazione. Per quanto riguarda la comunicazione, la ricerca si è concentrata principalmente sugli aspetti linguistici, trascurando la pragmatica, ossia l’uso del linguaggio in contesti sociali. Studi recenti hanno evidenziato un declino comunicativo-pragmatico nei disturbi...
Introduzione
La riabilitazione cognitiva è essenziale per migliorare la qualità della vita nelle persone con sclerosi multipla (PcSM). I modelli di teleriabilitazione sincrona, supportati da tecnologie digitali, offrono un'alternativa domiciliare per affrontare barriere logistiche, economiche e geografiche. Tuttavia, l’evidenza sulla loro efficacia per i deficit cognitivi nella SM è ancora...
La lettura rappresenta un’attività stimolante che, in fase di invecchiamento, può supportare il mantenimento delle capacità cognitive. La letteratura scientifica ha però ampiamente dimostrato come anche la lettura sia un processo influenzato dall’invecchiamento, necessitando di integrità sia sensoriale sia delle diverse componenti cognitive. L’obiettivo della nostra ricerca è quello di...
La valutazione neuropsicologica si basa su dati normativi per interpretare i punteggi degli esaminati ai test. Il sistema del Punteggi Equivalenti (PE), ampiamente utilizzato in Italia, è un metodo non parametrico che categorizza la prestazione degli esaminati ai test in cinque livelli ordinali. Il sistema dei PE fornisce una chiara classificazione clinica ma presenta diverse limitazioni, tra...
Touchscreen interactions require complex motor coordination, particularly of the thumbs. This study investigates the kinematic differences underlying two classes of digital intention: content consumption and content generation. Eighteen naïve participants were instructed to type standardized sentences on Google and WhatsApp, respectively representing the two digital intentions. Thumb...
Negotiation plays a crucial role in reaching mutually beneficial agreement during shared decision-making. In neuroscience, hyperscanning paradigm allows to grasp the complexity of brain dynamics during such complex interactions. This study used functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning to investigate brain-to-brain synchronization during interactive negotiation, and explored...
Introduction. Early socio-cognitive development relies on the ability to discriminate and categorize social stimuli. Infants’ preference for faces is well-known, engaging brain regions within occipito-temporal cortex and right-lateralized responses by 4 months (de Heering & Rossion, 2015). Hands also play a crucial role in social communication and are salient from the first months of life. By...
Il malingering si riferisce alla simulazione o esagerazione intenzionale della sintomatologia clinica per ottenere un vantaggio secondario. La sua valutazione è cruciale in ambito forense e clinico.
La letteratura sottolinea l’importanza di strumenti psicometrici standardizzati, tra cui misure autoriferite di sintomi potenzialmente inverosimili (assurdi o fittizi) e test volti a rilevare...
Introduzione. Nonostante l’inquinamento atmosferico rappresenti uno dei principali rischi per la salute in Europa, posizionandosi come seconda causa di morte nel continente con oltre 300.000 decessi l’anno, vi è ancora poca consapevolezza del problema tra la popolazione. Inoltre, le politiche adottate per ridurre le emissioni e migliorare la qualità dell’aria sono spesso percepite dalla...
Plant Awareness Disparity (PAD) is a cognitive phenomenon where human observers tend to overlook plants in complex scenarios, favoring animals and inanimate objects. Our study investigates whether this tendency extends to the numerical perception of plants compared to other elements. We conducted two behavioral experiments to test the hypothesis that plant numerosity is systematically...
Lo screening neurocognitivo nei disturbi da uso di sostanze (DUS) e nel disturbo da gioco d’azzardo patologico (GAP) è cruciale, alla luce della significativa sovrapposizione tra questi disturbi e deficit in ambiti cognitivi chiave come il controllo degli impulsi e la flessibilità cognitiva. Studi recenti evidenziano come individui con DUS presentino compromissioni neurocognitive che incidono...
La ruminazione è un processo cognitivo caratterizzato dalla focalizzazione su un evento con valenza negativa, che porta ad esperire pensieri persistenti e ripetitivi su tale evento. Una forma specifica di ruminazione è quella che può verificarsi a seguito di eventi che suscitano rabbia, la cosiddetta ruminazione di rabbia. Il presente studio si propone di validare la versione italiana...
Aging is a multifaceted process involving biological, psychological, and social changes that collectively affect an individual’s ability to adapt and function. Rather than focusing solely on disease, current perspectives emphasize maintaining intrinsic capacity—mobility, cognition, emotional well-being, and vitality—as central to aging well. Declines in spatial navigation are particularly...
La vista svolge un ruolo cruciale nella rappresentazione dello spazio. Il compito di “cross-sectioning” richiede di identificare la forma interna bidimensionale di solidi 3D, tagliati trasversalmente da un piano. Cognitivamente, questo compito implica una solida rappresentazione spaziale degli oggetti e la manipolazione mentale di figure bidimensionali e tridimensionali. Il presente studio ha...
Introduzione: Il dolore cronico primario (Chronic Primary Pain, CPP) è una categoria diagnostica proposta recentemente che comprende condizioni di dolore cronico prive di segni clinici evidenti o di una chiara origine eziopatogenetica. Questi disturbi sembrano condividere un meccanismo cerebrale comune, noto come sensibilizzazione centrale, in cui i neuroni nocicettivi diventano iper-reattivi...
Il presente studio analizza l’impatto del consenso presunto sui tassi di donazione di organi, un tema di crescente rilevanza nel contesto sanitario globale. La carenza di organi disponibili per i trapianti continua a causare numerosi decessi, con dati preoccupanti registrati in vari Paesi. Mentre il modello del consenso presunto, adottato da nazioni come Austria e Francia, è visto come un...
Touch-based interaction is central to smartphone use. Research on human–technology interaction has traditionally focused on typing behavior, often through the analysis of timing and spatial characteristics — as exemplified by large-scale studies such as Palin et al. (2019). In contrast, swipe gestures remain understudied, despite their ubiquity in mobile interaction.
This study examines the...
Introduction: Language comprehension is thought to rely on the pre-activation of linguistic representations based on context, facilitating the processing of upcoming input. Prediction-by-production models propose that linguistic prediction draws on processes and representations shared with language production. To test this proposal, we applied high-density transcranial alternating current...
In recent years, neuroscientific research has established the crucial role of the cerebellum in social cognition processes. However, little is known about the specific cerebellar oscillatory frequencies involved in these processes, mostly due to the cerebellum's intrinsic characteristics that make traditional electrophysiological techniques (e.g., EEG and MEG) more complicated to apply....
This study explores the influence of circadian rhythms and total sleep deprivation on the components of attention - selective, divided, and switching - using the Attentional Demands Task (AD-Task).
The research consisted of two phases, during which subjective indices of sleepiness, vigor, and affect were monitored, in addition to sleep quality and individual chronotype. Regarding the...
In the last decades, increasing efforts have been devoted to exploring the influence of ethnic group membership on face processing. Several studies have shown that individuals process own-race faces differently from other-race faces. Specifically, research has documented the phenomenon known as the Other-Race Categorisation Advantage (ORCA), which refers to the tendency for individuals to...
Introduction:
Dreams have been proposed as a window into sleep-related memory consolidation and integration processes. In this study, we investigate the interplay between sleep, memory consolidation, and dream content using targeted memory reactivation (TMR), a method that delivers sensory cues during sleep to influence memory processing.
Methods:
Ten participants (5 females, mean age:...
Introduction: The rubber hand illusion is a well-known experiment that allows manipulation of one's own body experience. The original questionnaire gauges both the illusion experience and unforeseen experiences acting as control statements. In particular, two statements pertain to the referral of touch originating from the rubber hand (RoT), and one concerns the feeling of ownership of the...
Introduction. It has been shown that omission and substitution errors in reading single words and pseudowords in the acquired reading disorder of right brain-damaged patients can depend on at least two different mechanisms: the association of unilateral spatial neglect with altered eye movements (i.e., neglect dyslexia), which produce left-sided omissions (Primativo et al., 2015) or an...
This study introduces the Virtual Memory Ecological Battery (V-MEB), an innovative virtual reality-based assessment tool designed to evaluate memory functioning within ecologically valid environments for early detection of cognitive decline. Traditional neuropsychological assessments often lack ecological validity—the extent to which they reflect real-world cognitive demands. The V-MEB...
Financial well-being includes both objective indicators (e.g., income, savings) and subjective evaluations of one’s financial situation (subjective financial well-being, SFWB). Recent literature emphasizes the subjective dimension for its ability to provide a more holistic view of financial well-being. While early research treated SFWB as unidimensional, more recent studies recognize its...
In the last decade, the Open Science movement has proposed solutions to the proliferation of Questionable Research Practices, which undermined the credibility of psychological science. Among them, one the most successful has been the Open Science Framework (OSF), which encompasses a set of tools for making the entire research process more open, and which has had a central role in defining...
Comprendere lo sviluppo e le differenze individuali nella teoria della mente (ToM; la capacità di attribuire stati mentali agli altri) richiede strumenti di misura solidi e facilmente applicabili su larga scala. I compiti a risposta aperta - come il “Triangles task” - forniscono indicatori validi della ToM, ma richiedono uno scoring manuale molto dispendioso in termini di tempo e formazione....
Introduzione: Il Disturbo dello Spettro Autistico (ASD) include difficoltà nella comunicazione pragmatica, ovvero la capacità di usare il linguaggio e altri mezzi espressivi (e.g. gesti, espressioni facciali) in modo appropriato al contesto. Attualmente, pochi interventi mirano a migliorare tale abilità negli adolescenti autistici, e ancor meno in telehealth.
Scopo del lavoro è valutare...
Virtual reality (VR) integration in healthcare has demonstrated significant therapeutic potential, improving treatment adherence, accessibility, and clinical effectiveness. While self-report questionnaires remain the preferred method for user experience (UX) assessment due to their psychometric properties and efficiency, existing instruments present significant methodological limitations when...
When the brain lies at rest, in the absence of external input or tasks, spontaneous (intrinsic) brain connectivity is thought to represent a prior of relevant stimuli or behaviours. How does it apply to the hand, e.g., the main means of interaction with the external environment? Large patches of the cerebral cortex are dedicated to representing the human hand; these regions exhibit patterns of...
Introduction: The hypothalamus is central to neuroendocrine, emotional, and behavioral regulation. While its role in stress and aggression—e.g., HPA axis—is established, its structural involvement in childhood conduct problems remains underexplored. This study examined whether hypothalamic subregions show volumetric differences in adults with a history of such problems and whether these...
Lo spazio peripersonale (PPS) è quella porzione di spazio che circonda il corpo, all’interno del quale occorrono effetti di integrazione multisensoriale per interagire con l’ambiente e reazioni difensive per proteggere il proprio corpo.
Il presente studio esplora l’impatto della deprivazione visiva su queste due componenti del PPS, integrativa e difensiva. Gli effetti di integrazione...
Validating a scale across different cultural contexts is crucial for enhancing the construct's cross-national applicability and supporting its validity, especially regarding generalizability in varied administrative settings. Defining constructs is essential for developing psychological theories, as a reliable measurement is needed before empirical study can occur. Construct validation,...
Evaluative Conditioning (EC) is a type of evaluative learning, defined as the change in valence of neutral stimuli (Conditioned Stimuli, CSs) due to spatiotemporal pairings with positive or negative valenced stimuli (Unconditioned Stimuli, USs). This EC effect is moderated by the contingency memory of CS-US pairs, without which there is little or no EC effect. Previous studies have shown that...
In the Attentional Boost Effect (ABE) participants recognize stimuli paired with targets to which they responded during the encoding phase better than stimuli paired with distractors that they ignored. Based on previous evidence indicating that the simulation of a motor action can enhance the incidental encoding of study words (the Joint Memory Effect: JME), we asked whether the ABE could be...
The Attentional Boost Effect (ABE) refers to the finding that images encoded with to-be-responded targets are later remembered more accurately than images encoded with to-be-ignored distractors. The Dual-Task Interaction Model suggests that the ABE produces a transient increase in the amount of perceptual resources available to process target-associated images. With visual materials, this...
Introduction and aim
Color research has mainly used self-report ratings to assess color pleasantness. Since a few studies have also identified different electrocortical responses to various colors (Khadir et al., 2023; Roy et al., 2021), in this study we aimed to clarify the relationship between subjective pleasantness ratings and the corresponding electrocortical activity for single colors...
Inhibition Of Return (IOR) is a well-known attentional mechanism that slows responses to previously attended spatial locations, promoting exploration of new areas during visual search. For instance, when searching for car keys on a cluttered desk, we instinctively avoid rechecking places we have just looked at, reflecting the adaptive role of IOR.
A recent study suggests that IOR may not only...
Even though recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlight how human-caused climate change has already caused widespread damage to societies worldwide, conspiracy theories questioning its existence, causes, and consequences continue to abound. These narratives range from claims that climate change is a hoax or the result of systematic scientific fraud to elaborate...
Group decision-making involves both cognitive and emotional processes shaped by how individuals mentally represent their group – either ideally or realistically. This study examined how discussing these representations impacts decision-making, as well as neural and autonomic activity. Using a multimodal hyperscanning approach with electroencephalography (EEG), functional Near-Infrared...
Introduction
The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) is a widely adopted tool for the psychometric analysis of language in psychological, social, and clinical contexts. The recently updated LIWC-22 English version introduces new psychological categories, a more flexible hierarchical structure, and an expanded dictionary. However, the last official Italian version dates back to 2007—prior...
Gli studi contemporanei sulla memoria autobiografica che prevedono la somministrazione congiunta di compiti narrativi e questionari self-report sono accomunati dal fatto che la sequenza con cui vengono somministrate queste due tipologie di strumenti è sempre la stessa: in una prima fase, i partecipanti formulano un racconto autobiografico e solo successivamente procedono alla compilazione di...
Reading development depends on the integration of perceptual and cognitive processes. Visual crowding—interference from nearby flankers that impairs target recognition—correlates with reading speed in both typical and dyslexic readers (Pelli et al., 2007; Pelli, 2016; Spinelli et al., 2001; Martelli et al., 2009). Although research suggests that crowding affects reading acquisition, its...
Although various studies have investigated the factors contributing to a successful donation appeal, most have only focused on the characteristics of the donation recipient. For instance, emotional expressions and identifiable victims can increase generosity. The role of background in shaping donation decisions remains instead mostly underexplored. Understanding how visual context influences...
Background: L'euristica dell'affetto, come proposto da Finucane et al. (2000), descrive come le emozioni influenzino giudizi e decisioni, portando le persone a inferire rischi e benefici sulla base di affetti positivi o negativi. Nel contesto medico, l'intelligenza artificiale (IA) sta assumendo un ruolo crescente nella diagnosi e gestione dei pazienti. Comprendere come le percezioni affettive...
Recent evidence in sleep disorders shows that REM sleep fragmentation (frequent cortical arousals and sleep stage transitions disrupting REM sleep continuity) interferes with overnight amygdala adaptation to emotional events, possibly explaining the excessive emotional reactivity reported in these patients. However, sleep in clinical populations features multiple sleep alterations besides REM...
Come viene rappresentato mentalmente il peso corporeo? Questo studio ha indagato se la percezione di questa variabile sociale sia organizzata spazialmente in modo analogo all’effetto SNARC osservato nella cognizione numerica (ossia, quantità piccole associate alla parte sinistra dello spazio e quantità grandi a destra). A partecipanti (normopeso) sono state presentate delle immagini di stimoli...
Negli ultimi anni, alcuni curatori museali hanno iniziato a integrare dispositivi in grado di misurare le risposte fisiologiche dei visitatori durante le esposizioni museali. Questi dispositivi consentono, da un lato, di monitorare i cambiamenti fisiologici nel corso della visita e, dall’altro, rappresentano un mezzo per coinvolgere maggiormente il pubblico. Nonostante queste premesse, non è...
Elevati tratti psicopatici sono associati a pattern disfunzionali di regolazione emotiva, compromissione empatica e deficit nel riconoscimento delle emozioni, riconducibili all’alessitimia. Evidenze recenti indicano che individui con marcati tratti psicopatici conservano intatta la capacità di assunzione di prospettiva (Perspective Taking, PT), componente cognitiva dell’empatia. Al contempo,...
Durante l’invecchiamento, la memoria spaziale, fondamentale per compiti quotidiani come ricordare dove si trovano le chiavi, subisce un declino. Questo tipo di memoria si basa sulla capacità di rappresentare la posizione degli oggetti attraverso sistemi di riferimento egocentrico (centrato sul corpo) e allocentrico (centrato sull’ambiente). La letteratura ha evidenziato come queste abilità...
La discriminazione di genere rappresenta una forma pervasiva di disuguaglianza che si manifesta in diversi contesti sociali, influenzando credenze, emozioni e comportamenti. Il presente studio esplora le esperienze di discriminazione di genere, adottando il modello socio-ecologico di Bronfenbrenner come cornice teorica, con l’obiettivo di comprendere l’impatto che il microsistema e il...
Background: Active Ageing (AA) refers to the process of optimizing opportunities for health, participation, and security in later life. The University of Jyväskylä Active Ageing Scale (UJACAS) is one of the few instruments that operationalizes AA across four dimensions: motivation (will to act), ability, opportunity to act, and activity frequency. However, questions remain regarding the...
Constructs are often measured using multi-item scales and item quality evaluation depends on the theoretical framework adopted. For instance, within Classical Test Theory, items are typically evaluated based on their factor loadings, whereas Item Response Theory emphasizes item difficulty and discrimination. This contribution introduces an alternative, person-centered approach to item...
Al fine di indagare lo sviluppo dell’abilità di integrazione e segregazione multisensoriale, abbiamo somministrato un compito di percezione spaziale a 23 bambini di 3–5 anni. Utilizzando un device con due carrelli mobili dotati di smartphone, venivano presentati stimoli visivi (V), uditivi (A) o audiovisivi (AV), mentre i carrelli si allontanavano orizzontalmente. Due video sincronizzati...
Le esperienze genitoriali disfunzionali costituiscono un fattore di vulnerabilità per lo sviluppo di condizioni psicopatologiche nel corso della vita. Sebbene numerosi studi abbiano evidenziato alterazioni neuro-funzionali associate a tale fenomeno, le basi neurali coinvolte restano ancora poco approfondite. Tramite l’uso dell’elettroencefalografia (EEG), il presente studio ha esplorato le...
Gli utenti dei Social Network Sites (SNS) sono costantemente esposti a contenuti che enfatizzano la prospettiva delle ‘Good vibes only’ e partecipano attivamente a interazioni che promuovono un modello ideale di esistenza umana. Tale visione poggia sulla più generale Teoria della Psicologia Positiva, privando l’esperienza individuale di ogni forma di imperfezione, fragilità o emotività...
The emergence of the HEXACO model in personality studies and the lack of an adequate scale for the measurement of personality in adolescence according to this model have prompted some researchers to develop and validate a novel HEXACO scale for adolescents (10-14 years), named HEXACO Medium School Inventory Extended (MSI-E). The scale consists of 192 items and showed excellent psychometric...
In the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) field, individual differences play a fundamental role in shaping people’s attitudes towards robots. Among individual differences, culture is one of the most deeply ingrained in individuals through their development and upbringing, leading to the use of such cultural values as biases and heuristics in daily interactions with others. Given the crucial role of...
L’autoinganno (self-deception) è un atto di natura psicologica che può portare le persone a convincersi di falsità circa sé stessi. Le ragioni per cui le persone ricorrono all’autoinganno possono essere molteplici, ad esempio per mantenere una immagine positiva di sé o per rendere più facile ingannare gli altri. Mentire a sé stessi può alterare i ricordi autobiografici, promuovendo il recupero...
Background. Reward processing plays a central role in mental health and psychopathology. The Sign-Tracker/Goal-Tracker (ST/GT) framework, adapted from animal research, captures individual differences in how motivational salience is assigned either to reward-predictive cues (ST) or to the rewards themselves (GT). Here, we examined whether these profiles in humans are sensitive to changes in...
La generazione endogena del ritmo musicale è stata teorizzata come dipendente da regioni motorie e premotorie. Mentre modelli recenti evidenziano il ruolo del sistema motorio nella generazione di previsioni interne dell’azione durante la percezione e l’immaginazione del beat, il coinvolgimento causale di questo sistema resta poco chiaro. Un precedente studio nel nostro laboratorio ha...
Introduzione
Nella cognizione sociale umana, le prime impressioni sono essenziali: basate sull’inferenza di tratti caratteriali a partire da segnali non verbali come espressioni facciali e tono di voce, ci consentono di orientarci nelle interazioni con gli sconosciuti. Tuttavia, l’ascesa dei social media ha trasformato profondamente il contesto dei nostri primi incontri: quando...
While 40 Hz sensory and electric stimulation is being investigated as a cognitive enhancer in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), research has shown that transcranial stimulation at 60 and 90 Hz can enhance memory in healthy individuals, emphasizing the importance of frequency congruence between encoding and retrieval phases. This aligns with theories on levels of processing and the role of gamma...
La condivisione emotiva in psicoterapia, e più in generale nelle relazioni d’aiuto, risulta fondamentale nella costruzione di un legame positivo, cooperativo ed efficace. Tale connessione potrebbe riflettersi nella sincronizzazione tra i membri della diade, rilevabile attraverso pattern misurabili di allineamento nelle risposte fisiologiche durante l’interazione. Il presente studio coinvolge...
Introduction: Developmental Dyslexia (DD) is a prevalent learning that impairs reading acquisition and fluency. Due to its moderate-to-high heritability, the risk of DD rises by 40% with a first-degree relative's diagnosis. The present study uses a recently developed battery of non-verbal cognitive assessment tasks, the ReadFree Screening Tool (RFST), and multimodal MRI measures, to...
Mixed affect is characterized by the simultaneous existence of two emotional states, often of opposite valence. To illustrate, remembering a lost love may elicit feelings of warmth and sadness, promoting a sense of bittersweetness. However, the nature of mixed affect remains theoretically debated, with some theories proposing true simultaneous coactivation, and others suggesting rapid...
In antitesi rispetto alla tradizionale ricerca sul conformismo, Moscovici, Lage e Naffrechoux (1969) hanno condotto tre pionieristici esperimenti sull’influenza minoritaria mostrando come una minoranza coerente — che risponde in maniera antitetica rispetto alla norma ma mantiene la sua posizione con fermezza — possa persuadere la maggioranza ad adottare il proprio punto di vista. Sulla scia...
Recent studies investigating word processing highlighted the role of both linguistic (Anceresi et al. 2024) and sensory information, particularly visual information (Petilli et al., 2021), in shaping semantic representations. The present study aims to elucidate the relative contribution of linguistic and visual information to the neural representations of words, by re-analyzing a series of...
Background
Emotional linkage between romantic partners fosters intimacy, empathy, and relationship satisfaction. However, previous studies offer mixed evidence, with some highlighting interdependence and others revealing substantial variability across couples.
Methods
To investigate this further, we conducted a 30-day experience sampling study with 77 Italian romantic couples....
Negli anziani, l’esplorazione dell’ambiente esterno è fortemente modulata da componenti sociali, che influenzano sia la rappresentazione spaziale che le risposte emotive. La letteratura ha evidenziato che la codifica dello spazio si basi su un sistema di riferimento egocentrico (soggetto-oggetto) ed uno allocentrico (oggetto-oggetto), entrambi suscettibili all’influenza di stimoli sociali con...
Aging is a dynamic and multidimensional process shaped by the interaction between biological and psychosocial trajectories. Among the protective resources identified, brain reserve refers to the structural capacity of the brain to withstand damage. In contrast, cognitive reserve reflects its ability to maintain functioning through flexible and efficient processing strategies. Although these...
The flow state is defined as an optimal state of consciousness in which athletes experience total absorption, feelings of being extremely focused, and prolonged pleasantness. Such a concept has recently received particular interest in sports science because of a possible tight relationship with enhanced athletic performance. Hitherto, the attempts to investigate the neural correlates of the...
Il simposio si propone di esplorare le dinamiche emotive nell’era digitale, analizzando l’interazione tra esperienze reali e quelle mediate o generate dalla tecnologia. L’obiettivo è superare una visione statica delle emozioni, valorizzandone gli aspetti dinamici sia nei metodi di analisi sia nelle modalità di presentazione degli stimoli.
Verranno presentati risultati sperimentali...
L’interazione tra predisposizione genetica e fattori ambientali (gene x ambiente, GxE) è un tema centrale nella psicologia sperimentale, poiché la loro complessa interdipendenza gioca un ruolo cruciale nello sviluppo psicologico e comportamentale. L’utilizzo di modelli preclinici, che permettono di controllare sperimentalmente specifici fattori genetici ed ambientali, offre opportunità uniche...
L’invecchiamento comporta il fisiologico declino di alcune abilità cognitive legate alla guida. Per questo motivo molti Paesi tra i quali l’Italia hanno adottato politiche di screening per valutare l’idoneità alla guida negli automobilisti più anziani. Il presente studio esamina se le abilità cognitive legate alla guida cambino nel tempo, confrontando conducenti anziani soggetti a restrizioni...
Il comportamento di guida è un dominio privilegiato per osservare la complessità delle interazioni tra funzioni cognitive, processi decisionali, sistemi di valori e contesti ambientali. Lontano dall’essere un’attività automatica o puramente tecnica, la guida si configura come comportamento adattivo, multidimensionale e dinamico, che evolve nel tempo e si declina in modi diversi a seconda delle...
The symposium examines the cognitive and neuropsychological foundations of athletic performance, with a focus on how sports practice both engages and shapes higher-order mental functions. Drawing on converging evidence from neuroscience, psychology, and motor sciences, the symposium tackles aspects related to flow state, effort, cognitive-motor training, perceptual learning and concussion. The...
As the population is getting older, the prevalence of cognitive impairment and dementia is increasing, and it is important to (better) understand the risk factors, as well as the protective factors determining cognitive aging. Although early pathologic changes in AD have received the majority of attention, burgeoning literature also recognizes the role of factors such as cognitive reserve,...
Introduzione: La dislessia evolutiva (DD) colpisce il 7% dei bambini in età scolare e comporta svantaggi nell'istruzione e occupazione. L'eziologia della DD ha alla base complesse interazioni gene-ambiente. In particolare, la delezione del gene DCDC2-READ1 (DCDC2d) è stata associata alle capacità di lettura influenzando l’attività eccitatoria-inibitoria fondamentale per lo sviluppo...
Il presente contributo descrive la costruzione e la validazione preliminare di una libreria di ologrammi sociali, progettata per indagare la consapevolezza emotiva delle proprie emozioni all’interno di situazioni interpersonali credibili e coinvolgenti. Gli stimoli consistono in ricostruzioni tridimensionali dinamiche di persone reali impegnate in interazioni diadiche o gruppali, ottenute...
Perception of effort (PE) is a multifaceted construct, partly arising from corollary discharge mechanisms associated with increased central motor command (Marcora, 2009). Crucially, it is the subjective experience of effort—rather than objective task difficulty—that has been identified as the primary determinant of physical task engagement (Greenhouse-Tucknott et al., 2022). This study...
Il presente contributo introduce la scala MORDE (Moral Disengagement in Road Driving Evaluation), uno strumento psicometrico volto a misurare l’applicazione dei meccanismi di disimpegno morale, teorizzati da Bandura (1991), nel dominio della sicurezza stradale. L’obiettivo è stato quello di adattare il costrutto teorico ai comportamenti di guida, con particolare riferimento ai processi...
As the world’s population continues to age, the promotion of healthy cognitive ageing is becoming increasingly important. While Alzheimer’s research has traditionally focused on identifying risk factors and early biomarkers of the disease, comparatively less attention has been paid to protective factors such as cognitive reserve (CR). Cognitive reserve serves as a dynamic mediator that enables...
Introduzione: Il disturbo post-traumatico da stress (PTSD) è una psicopatologia caratterizzata da cambiamenti neurali eterogenei che rendono difficile l'identificazione di un trattamento efficace per tutti i pazienti. Una delle caratteristiche principali del PTSD è la forte risposta emozionale negativa – che cresce nel tempo – provocata dagli stimoli condizionati associati all’evento...
Negli ultimi anni, l’intelligenza artificiale (IA) ha trasformato il panorama artistico, influenzando profondamente la produzione, la vendita e fruizione di opere visive e musicali. Studi recenti hanno esplorato se e in quale misura gli individui provino emozioni o attribuiscano intenzionalità a opere visive astratte prodotte da IA, mostrando che i partecipanti tendono non solo a sperimentare...
Questo contributo approfondisce l’applicazione della scala MORDE (Moral Disengagement in Road Driving Evaluation) all’analisi dei comportamenti di guida in un campione di over 65, con particolare attenzione alle differenze di genere. La scala, già validata in un precedente studio, misura due dimensioni principali del disimpegno morale nella guida trasgressiva: giustificazione normativa e...
Introduction. Proficient soccer players must process substantial amounts of information rapidly while under mental pressure1. This behavior involves specific cognitive anticipatory and decision-making process where both precision and speed are optimized2. While research in the area of sports specific motor training is abundant, the same cannot be said for the cognitive domain3.
Aim. The...
Depression has been consistently identified as a potential risk factor for dementia, yet its role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) remains unclear. This study investigated the interplay between depressive symptoms, amyloid-β pathology, cognitive decline, and functional abilities in the context of conversion to Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) or AD.
We analysed data from the...
Introduzione:
Le esperienze precoci che influenzano il legame di attaccamento possono aumentare il rischio di sviluppare psicopatologia, come la depressione, in età adulta. La presenza di una figura accudente alternativa, che promuove l’attaccamento-sicuro guadagnato (ESA), sembra invece avere un effetto protettivo nel mitigare le alterazioni indotte dal legame compromesso con il caregiver...
Introduzione: La misurazione dello stile di guida è un elemento determinante nell’ambito degli studi sulla sicurezza stradale, poiché permette di individuare gruppi di conducenti a rischio a cui indirizzare specifici programmi di intervento. Il presente studio è focalizzato sull'indagine delle relazioni tra comportamenti di guida aberranti e rischiosi auto-riferiti, da un lato, e prestazioni...
Sports performance requires rapid and accurate reactions to several sensory information. Recent evidence has highlighted the informative role of auditory cues, such as the sound of racket-ball contact in tennis, additionally to visual ones. However, research on audiovisual integration in sports remains limited. Here, we focus on the multisensory integration of auditory and visual information,...
Le fluttuazioni emotive rappresentano un indicatore chiave della flessibilità affettiva; tuttavia i metodi statistici che le modellano possono privilegiare aspetti diversi del processo temporale. In questo studio analizziamo dati Experience Sampling raccolti in contesto ecologico: per sette giorni i partecipanti hanno compilato otto volte al giorno – per un totale di circa ottocento...
Associative memory is often impaired from the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Gamma band (30–120 Hz) brain oscillations are crucial for cognitive functions like multisensory integration and memory consolidation. This study investigates whether resting-state EEG (rsEEG) spectral power can predict associative memory performance, potentially serving as an early biomarker for memory...
Introduzione. L’esposizione ad esperienze avverse precoci (ELA), come l’alterazione del legame di attaccamento e gli eventi traumatici, rappresenta uno dei principali fattori di rischio per lo sviluppo di depressione in età adulta. Tuttavia, la forte co-occorrenza di queste esperienze rende difficile distinguerne il ruolo specifico. Attraverso un approccio traslazionale, indagheremo il...
Sports-related concussion (SRC) is a traumatic brain injury induced by biomechanical forces, typically resulting from direct impacts to the head, face, or neck. Although the associated neurological impairment is often transient, in some cases symptoms can evolve over minutes or hours and become chronic, developing into post-concussive syndrome. SRCs manifest with somatic symptoms (e.g.,...
Tra i fattori che influenzano gli incidenti stradali, la guida distratta emerge come una delle cause più significative. Il progetto, attraverso un continuum di tre studi, mira a comprendere in che modo la suscettibilità alla distrazione possa influire sul comportamento alla guida. Studio I: revisione sistematica della letteratura, seguendo le linee guida PRISMA, per identificare i fattori che...
Abbiamo condotto un’analisi scientometrica per mappare la produzione scientifica internazionale sul tema delle emozioni nella malattia di Parkinson. La scientometria è una metodologia quantitativa che consente di esplorare e visualizzare la struttura della letteratura scientifica, individuando autori influenti, collaborazioni e temi emergenti.
La ricerca è stata effettuata sulla piattaforma...
Aging is a lifelong process encompassing time-sensitive trajectories leading to different degrees of healthy-/unhealthy-aging. Executive functions, including perceptual processing, cognitive control and motor action, as well as their plasticity, are heavily modulated by such trajectories.
Within the realm of perceptual processes, predictive coding theory posits that perception is a...
Understanding how emotions and motivational states emerge from the dynamic interplay between brain activity, physiological signals, and interoceptive processes is a central challenge in affective neuroscience. Integrating evidence from functional neuroimaging, psychophysiology, interoception, and virtual reality interventions, this symposium illustrates how central and peripheral physiological...
La percezione ritmica è importante sia nella musica che nel linguaggio, e i bambini con disturbi del neurosviluppo mostrano pattern ritmici atipici. Tuttavia, gli strumenti esistenti per valutare le abilità ritmiche sono spesso pensati per adulti, rendendo necessario sviluppare test più adatti ai bambini. Abbiamo ideato una versione per bambini del Beat Alignment Test (BAT), test di...
La musica, stimolo universale e gratificante, coinvolge processi cognitivi, affettivi e sociali, grazie anche alla sua componente ritmica. Questo simposio, presentato da cinque giovani ricercatrici e ricercatori provenienti da università italiane e internazionali, esplora come ritmo e piacere musicale influenzino percezione, emozione e interazione sociale. I contributi offrono una prospettiva...
Background. Aberrant reward processing plays a central role in several psychiatric disorders. The Sign-Tracker/Goal-Tracker (ST/GT) model, developed in rodent research, distinguishes individuals who attribute incentive salience to reward-predictive cues (ST) from those who focus on the reward itself (GT). We translated this model to humans using functional MRI (fMRI) and investigated its...
This symposium highlights innovative approaches to psychometric modelling aimed at advancing the assessment and understanding of psychological constructs. The four contributions showcase diverse methodologies that go beyond traditional frameworks to better capture the complexity of human behaviour and measurement.
The first presentation evaluates the use of Exploratory Graph Analysis (EGA)...
La ricerca sulla navigazione negli spazi urbani dal 1960 in avanti ha tentato di comprendere come le persone formulino dei percorsi per raggiungere le loro destinazioni nello spazio urbano, di come memorizzino e ottimizzino tali percorsi, di quali elementi urbani si servano e come imparino a muoversi in ambienti inediti. Inizialmente, questo interesse è emerso dall’incontro tra la geografia e...
Climate change represents not only an environmental crisis but also a psychological and cognitive challenge. The interplay between environmental, psychological, and neurocognitive factors makes information processing complex, interfering with affective engagement, planning, and the adoption of sustainable behaviors. Moreover, cognitive biases and intense emotional responses—such as...
In psychological research, measurement models often aggregate items under the assumption that the effects of other variables remain consistent across those items (i.e., effect invariance). This assumption can lead to biased statistical conclusions, particularly by producing a positive bias in the F-test and inflating the Type I error rate, since it overlooks the random variability in...
INTRODUZIONE: Negli ultimi tre decenni, le neuroscienze cognitive hanno esaminato la capacità dell'essere umano di orientarsi in ambienti urbani, analizzando i processi cognitivi e cerebrali che sono alla base di una navigazione spaziale efficace. Numerosi studi hanno utilizzato metodiche di neuroimmagine funzionale, capaci di identificare il coinvolgimento di una rete di strutture cerebrali...
Il ritmo è una componente centrale della musica, coinvolta in processi cognitivi e affettivi, ed è strettamente legato al piacere musicale grazie alla sua capacità di indurre movimento. Studi precedenti hanno mostrato che il piacere musicale è massimo per ritmi di complessità intermedia, che favoriscono anche le abilità di sincronizzazione in compiti di tapping. Tuttavia, non è chiaro come la...
Numerous studies emphasize the value of integrating nature in everyday life to support cognitive and emotional functioning, enhance psychological well-being, and promote sustainable development. Three lines of research – aiming at fostering healthier individuals and more environmentally conscious communities – are presented.
The first research explores how nature exposure aids emotion...
Understanding how bodily signals contribute to the experience of complex emotions is central to models of embodied affective processing. Aesthetic chills -brief, intense physiological reactions often triggered by emotionally salient media- provide a unique window into peak affective states and their underlying bodily dynamics. While chills have been associated with both unipolar (positive or...
The Rasch model is a widely used psychometric model that enables the direct comparison between item properties and respondent characteristics. However, its strict assumptions can limit its applicability in experimental psychology. Given its mathematical equivalence to the inverse logit link function in generalized linear models (GLMs) for binomially distributed response variables, Rasch-like...
La navigazione spaziale è un’abilità cognitiva complessa, cruciale nella vita quotidiana poiché consente agli individui di muoversi efficacemente nell’ambiente. La sua complessità deriva dal fatto che essa si basa sull’integrazione di numerosi stimoli (visivi, uditi, propriocettivi) e molteplici processi cognitivi (percezione, attenzione, memoria, pianificazione, decision-making). Lo sviluppo...
Fare musica è un’attività universale che consente agli esseri umani di creare insieme suoni piacevoli. Tuttavia, resta poco chiaro come l’estetica di questi suoni influenzi la sincronizzazione dei movimenti tra individui. In questo studio abbiamo utilizzato un paradigma di sincronizzazione interpersonale per indagare se la qualità di un accordo prodotto (consonante vs. dissonante) influenzi la...
This study aims at testing the effect of subjective and objective environmental features on experiences of technostress in university students, and its hypothesized involved psychological mechanisms, in particular the sense of self and agency. N = 1188 students from 22 Italian universities were included. A two-wave data collection procedure was carried out via online surveys comprising two...
Background: Discriminant validity (DV) is present when two measures of similar, yet distinct constructs exhibit a correlation that is sufficiently low to consider them as distinct. Multiple strategies exist for evaluating DV, but recent recommendations highlighted Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) as a robust approach, although contemporary techniques such as Exploratory Graph Analysis...
Gastrointestinal (GI) signals have long been hypothesized to contribute to emotional experiences. However, empirical evidence directly linking gastric activity to subjective emotional states remains sparse and inconsistent. In a recent study conducted in our laboratory, an ingestible capsule measuring pH, pressure, and temperature within the GI tract, was used, together with a single-channel...
Introduzione. I modelli ad agenti (ABM) si sono diffusi per analizzare e comprendere il comportamento umano in diversi ambienti sociali e spaziali. Tuttavia, quando si tratta di modellare l'interazione tra i sistemi umani e l'ambiente urbano, la complessità comportamentale degli agenti risulta limitata. Questo lavoro si propone di arricchire la complessità cognitiva e comportamentale di...
La musica rappresenta un’importante fonte di piacere, con una straordinaria capacità di evocare emozioni, indurre movimento e favorire la sincronizzazione tra individui. È noto che la musica attiva il sistema dopaminergico mesolimbico e le aree motorie. Tuttavia, i meccanismi che legano il piacere musicale a comportamenti condivisi e sincronizzazione cerebrale restano poco indagati. Il...
The RestPod is an innovative biophilic micro-environment designed to promote workplace restoration by alleviating cognitive fatigue, reducing stress, and enhancing emotional well-being. Rooted in environmental psychology and biophilic design principles, the RestPod integrates natural elements such as stabilized moss, potted plants, and wood finishes, combined with adjustable warm lighting and...
Italian students have consistently underperformed in international mathematics assessments. Thus, innovative approaches to support learning in this domain are necessary. Educational games, which incorporate game-like elements into learning and assessment, have emerged as promising tools for enhancing students’ engagement and improving learning outcomes. Moreover, affective components and...
La percezione del tempo (PT) non è costante, ma è modulata da fattori emotivi e cognitivi. Se da un lato stimoli rewarding influenzano l’orologio interno attraverso meccanismi dopaminergici, dall’altro caratteristiche musicali come ritmo, complessità e preferenza incidono sui giudizi temporali. In questo studio sfruttiamo la musica, uno stimolo rewarding, per esplorare come piacere musicale e...
This study explores two innovative, immersive virtual reality (VR) interventions aimed at improving psychological wellbeing in individuals with moderate to severe depressive symptoms. The first intervention integrates heart rate variability biofeedback (HRV-BF), a technique known to promote autonomic balance by enhancing parasympathetic activity and reducing sympathetic dominance. The second...
Introduzione. Con il progresso della tecnologia, il Global Positioning System (GPS) è sempre più utilizzato negli spostamenti quotidiani in ambienti urbani, pertanto comprendere le diverse tipologie di utilizzo del GPS e il suo impatto sulle abilità di navigazione umana è fondamentale.
Metodo e risultati. Da una revisione sistematica e metanalisi condotta su 23 studi, secondo le linee guida...
This symposium explores the neural foundations of the social brain, highlighting how social perception emerges from the dynamic interplay between brain networks supporting perception, action, and cognition. Through a set of complementary studies, we will present how visual, motor, and cerebellar networks support the encoding of social signals, adapt through experience, and vary across...
La memoria per le azioni è stata ampiamente indagata nella letteratura psicologica, con evidenze robuste a supporto dell’effetto enactment, ovvero il vantaggio mnestico derivante dall’esecuzione motoria dell’azione espressa da una frase o da un verbo durante la codifica. Tuttavia, restano da chiarire i fattori che modulano tale effetto. Nel primo studio, abbiamo indagato l’interazione tra...
Dalla rassegna da noi condotta emerge con chiarezza che i Large Language Models (LLM) costituiscono modelli della cognizione umana in grado di simulare efficacemente una molteplicità di aspetti. Sebbene in alcuni ambiti sia stata documentata una divergenza tra il funzionamento degli LLM e quello della mente umana, riteniamo che l’ampiezza dei fenomeni cognitivi attualmente simulati da tali...
This symposium is organized with the aim of fostering a deeper understanding of Network Analysis as a theoretical and methodological approach in psychology. In recent years, Network Science has emerged as a powerful tool to model psychological constructs as systems of interacting components. This shift allows researchers to examine the structure, dynamics, and complexity of psychological...
Recenti sviluppi nell’ambito della scienza cognitiva (e.g. Ianì, 2019) e della filosofia della memoria (e.g. Righetti, 2024) hanno sottolineato quanto sia importante considerare la memoria umana, non più un nucleo cognitivo indipendente e isolato, ma come ontologicamente connessa con i sistemi di percezione e azione. Secondo quella che viene definita “embodied cognition” (EC), l’elaborazione...
Negli ultimi anni, l’affermazione dei Large Language Models (LLM) ha ridefinito l’interazione tra psicologia e scienze computazionali, offrendo strumenti inediti per la modellizzazione dei processi cognitivi complessi. Questi modelli, addestrati su vastissimi corpora tramite architetture neurali profonde, manifestano competenze emergenti quali inferenza semantica, astrazione concettuale e...
Perceiving the body as one’s own relies on the integration of multisensory information such as vision, touch, and proprioception. Although multisensory mechanisms underlying body representation have been widely investigated in adulthood, how these processes develop at birth and change with aging remains poorly understood. This symposium aims to provide a comprehensive, lifespan-oriented...
When we observe freely moving newborns, we may notice that, among their spontaneous movements, self-directed ones are the most frequent. Influential accounts have pioneeringly hypothesized that early self-exploratory movements may hold a significant evolutionary meaning, by fostering the emergence of a primitive bodily-self representation (Rochat et al., 2001). Indeed, self-directed movements...
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends updated COVID-19 vaccines for the 2024–2025 season, emphasizing their importance in preventing severe illness and hospitalization. Nonetheless, vaccine hesitancy continues to represent a critical barrier, undermining the success of immunization efforts and contributing to the ongoing circulation of the virus. To better understand the...
La letteratura ha dimostrato che la memoria può essere influenzata da simulazioni sensomotorie che avvengono durante la codifica, come quelle coinvolte nell'immaginazione mentale (IM), nell'osservazione dell'azione (AO) o nelle affordance suscitate dalla presentazione visiva di oggetti (OBJ). Tali simulazioni possono migliorare la memoria creando tracce mnestiche multimodali, più ricche e...
I modelli linguistici di grandi dimensioni (LLM) hanno dimostrato buone prestazioni in numerosi compiti di ragionamento e problem solving tipicamente studiati dalla psicologia cognitiva. Quando sottoposti a test, la loro accuratezza risulta spesso comparabile a quella di adulti neurotipici, mettendo in discussione critiche storiche rivolte ai modelli associazionistici. In questo contributo...
Intensive longitudinal designs, such as daily diary and experience sampling methods (Bolger & Laurenceau, 2013), offer valuable opportunities to study psychological processes as they unfold in the ecological context of daily life. However, the richness of the data collected through these designs requires sophisticated tools to leverage both inter-individual and intra-individual variability....
The ability to distinguish one’s own body from the external world is a crucial milestone in early development. Hands may play a crucial role in this process: from the earliest spontaneous movements, as infants engage in visually guided actions, the integration of visual, proprioceptive, and motor information may strengthen their ability to discriminate their own hands from the environment. In...
Introduction. Hebbian plasticity has been implicated in the formation of associations between sensory and motor representations of actions, contributing to the emergence of the motor resonance phenomenon (i.e., activation of the motor system at the sight of other people’s actions, driven by the action observation network, and underlying different facets of social cognition).
Methods....
L'intelligenza artificiale attraversa un “cambio di paradigma” avviato dai grandi modelli linguistici (LLM). Questi modelli hanno raggiunto un'accuratezza senza precedenti in moltissimi compiti di elaborazione del linguaggio naturale. Il successo degli LLM è dovuto principalmente alla loro capacità di rappresentare le parole nel loro contesto attraverso i cosidetti “embeddings”: vettori di...
Introduzione: Recenti ricerche sull’embodiment suggeriscono che il sistema motorio è coinvolto durante il processamento di concetti manipolabili rispetto a quelli non manipolabili. Tuttavia, non è chiaro se il sistema motorio sia coinvolto durante il recupero di categorie naturali manipolabili (i.e., frutta).
Metodi: 46 giovani adulti hanno svolto un compito di accesso semantico-lessicale...
Traditional personality theories propose a universal structure based on a limited set of traits (e.g., Big Five, HEXACO). However, factors such as aging and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) may alter this structure. Prior research suggests that healthy aging reorganizes rather than simplifies personality. In contrast, AD appears to affect both cognition and personality, with caregivers frequently...
How do age-related changes impact bodily-self perception? We tackled this issue by investigating the effect of age on multisensory integration processes underlying the sense of body ownership – the feeling that "my body is mine." Using the rubber hand illusion across three age groups (young, middle-aged, and older adults), we found that the explicit component of body ownership (the subjective...
Introduction
The posterior cerebellum has emerged as a pivotal component of the social brain, contributing to various socio-affective processes. Despite accumulating evidence of its involvement in social cognition, the temporal dynamics and causal interactions with cortical regions, such as the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), remain underexplored.
Methods
In a series of different...
Introduction: Network analysis provides a systematic, quantitative approach to modeling and understanding complex systems, and it has gained traction in both neuroscience and psychology. However, interdisciplinary collaboration between these fields from a network analysis perspective remains limited. In trying to bridge this gap, we investigated how the network structure of seven cognitive...
La semplice osservazione di azioni è in grado di indurre una simulazione mentale implicita degli stati successivi di quanto osservato. La simulazione mentale può a sua volta generare distorsioni mnestiche, producendo falsi riconoscimenti per immagini che rappresentano la naturale continuazione dell’azione originaria.
Nell’Esperimento 1, 33 partecipanti hanno osservato 18 brevi video,...
Introduction
Abstract intelligence and non-verbal thinking are essential components in understanding cognitive potential, especially in individuals with intellectual giftedness. However, traditional psychometric measures tend to underestimate these dimensions, favouring verbal and academic components. This study proposes the development of a new instrument for assessing cognitive abstraction,...
Introduction: The posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and early visual cortices (V1/V2) form a reciprocal network crucial for decoding emotional facial expressions. While recursive processing models underscore the significance of feedback connections, the causal impact of pSTS-to-V1/V2 back-projections on emotion perception remains underexplored. This study investigates whether tailoring...
Introduction: The way we perceive our body and its dimensions depends on how our brain combines information from different senses (Blanke et al. 2015). As the human sensory system declines with age, affecting all sensory modalities (Cavazzana et al. 2018), we hypothesize that body perception may differ between older and younger adults.
Methods: We investigate this hypothesis by comparing the...
Secondo l’embodied cognition le risorse motorie giocano un ruolo centrale nei processi cognitivi. Nell’osservazione dell’azione, il riconoscimento degli stati successivi avviene più rapidamente rispetto a quelli precedenti grazie a una simulazione motoria implicita ed automatica in avanti (Ianì et al., 2022). Tuttavia, questo vantaggio è ridotto da una postura che limita la capacità di agire...
Background and aim: This study investigates the application of large language models (LLMs) as collaborative tools for mental health professionals, focusing on their integration with the ICD-11 framework. At the intersection of artificial and human cognition, we introduce LLMind Chat, an AI-driven interface to augment clinical reasoning by combining real-time retrieval of ICD-11 guidelines...
Introduzione. Le interazioni sociali con altre persone all’interno delle esperienze quotidiane sono potenti mezzi per imparare a interagire con il mondo. Attraverso l’apprendimento osservativo, una forma di apprendimento sociale, gli individui possono ridurre il tempo e i tentativi necessari per apprendere azioni e comportamenti complessi. Sebbene l’apprendimento osservativo sia cruciale per...
Gli spazi di apprendimento online, durante e dopo la pandemia Covid-19, sono divenuti per il cervello dell’uomo non-luoghi, ossia mezzi utili alla fruizione didattica, caratterizzati dall’isolamento fisico e mentale. I neuroni GPS, adibiti al riconoscimento dello spazio circostante, non si attivano nel setting digitale. Inoltre, le dimensioni dell’attenzione e del coinvolgimento hanno subito...
Questo studio longitudinale esplora l'associazione tra la pratica della pallavolo non agonistica e lo sviluppo di abilità cognitive, competenze emotive e capacità sociali in adolescenti che praticano la pallavolo (12-19 anni), confrontandoli con un gruppo di non atleti.
Il disegno prevede valutazioni a inizio (T1) e fine stagione (T2, 9 mesi) tramite task cognitivi (Flanker, Number Letter,...
Previous ERP research has shown that violations of stereotypical gender expectations elicit responses similar to those seen in morphosyntactic gender agreement violations. These studies did not report any expected semantic effect. The present work aims to investigate the effect of stereotypical and grammatical gender on subject-verb agreement processing. Participants (N=44) silently read...
The potential role of attachment quality in emotion regulation and attention has been frequently discussed. Anxious attachment is associated with hypervigilance toward emotional stimuli while avoidant attachment is characterized by attentional withdrawal. However, there might be a selective attention deficit affecting either the engagement or disengagement components of attentional processing....
Introduction: The ability to regulate emotional responses is essential for university students, frequently exposed to high-levels stressors that affect their well-being and cognitive functioning. Butterfly Tapping (BT) is a self-administered form of bilateral alternating stimulation, originally introduced in clinical settings to promote emotional regulation. Despite its clinical relevance, its...
The IASP definition of pain emphasizes its subjective nature, highlighting its multidimensionality. Pain signals potential harm to the body and, due to its negative emotional impact, can attract attention and mobilize resources to deal with the threat. Managing pain thus requires a strong cognitive component, as evidenced by the overlap between neural systems involved in pain management and...
Introduzione. Il comportamento di avvicinamento (CA; closing-in, in ambito clinico) si verifica quando, durante un compito di copia, ci si avvicina al modello per replicarlo. Questo fenomeno, osservabile anche in individui sani in condizioni di doppio compito (Sagliano et al., 2013), suggerisce un legame con il sovraccarico delle funzioni di controllo frontale. Tuttavia, i correlati cerebrali...
Partendo dalle evidenze che sottolineano l’ampia variabilità interindividuale nelle abilità navigazionali ed estendendo il concetto di embodied cognition (Goldman & de Vignemont, 2009) alla navigazione umana, l’obiettivo di questo studio è indagare se le differenze individuali nell’elaborazione dello spazio corporeo interno (interocezione) ed esterno possano contribuire a determinare la...
The ability to follow the gaze of conspecifics can provide valuable information about the environment and may be essential for developing more advanced socio-cognitive skills in both humans and other species. In this study, we took a comparative approach to investigate whether robust capuchin monkeys (Sapajus spp.) can follow the gaze of their conspecifics. We presented 10 subjects with...
I processi di orientamento garantiscono all'individuo di spostare l'attenzione nello spazio al fine di analizzare selettivamente e rispondere a stimoli esterni. L’attività di tali meccanismi facilita la creazione di un programma motorio anticipatorio, aumentando la prontezza ad agire e riducendo i tempi di risposta (TR) a stimoli che si presentano nella posizione attenzionata. Il presente...
L'industria del fast fashion contribuisce in modo significativo al cambiamento climatico, sfruttando enormi quantità di risorse naturali (Mukherjee, 2015; Niinimäki, 2020). La moda on demand sta emergendo come alternativa sostenibile perché prevede la produzione dei capi solo su ordinazione. Le tecnologie di scansione del corpo svolgono un ruolo chiave in questo processo, permettendo ai...
Introduzione:
L'ascolto della musica sembra influenzare l'attivazione delle reti cerebrali coinvolte nei processi emotivi e cognitivi, modulandone la risposta. La componente P300 dei potenziali evento-correlati (ERP), ottenuta da un paradigma “oddball” uditivo, rappresenta un indicatore neurofisiologico utile per studiare le risorse attentive.
Metodo:
La P300 è stata elicitata con...
In un compito di scelta, la prestazione è tipicamente più veloce e accurata quando l’orientamento della porzione afferrabile di un utensile corrisponde alla posizione della risposta manuale. In base all’ipotesi dell’attivazione di affrordaces, il manico visivamente saliente o meno, attiverebbe un’appropriata azione di afferramento della mano ad esso allineata.
Secondo una linea di ricerca...
Introduction: University students often face high emotional and cognitive demands, highlighting the need for effective strategies to regulate anxiety and emotional reactivity. Alternating Bilateral Stimulation (BLS), a non-invasive technique derived from EMDR therapy, alternately activates brain hemispheres through rhythmic sensory stimuli. It is hypothesized to reduce emotional reactivity by...
Mobile typing is a widespread activity for people of all ages and social backgrounds. Several factors can affect typing efficiency and accuracy including age, typing style (e.g., using two thumbs or a single index finger), keys size and whether the device provides feedback during input. The different use of each thumb on the keyboard between digital natives and immigrants (born respectively...
Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) offers powerful opportunities to simulate complex and ethically sensitive scenarios, enabling profound impacts on individuals' attitudes and behaviors. In this study, we leveraged IVR to address one of society’s most deeply rooted problems: the influence of organized crime and -particularly- mafia-like organizations. Using a between-subjects design, 100...
Background
Psychological flexibility is a key factor in athletic performance and well-being. This study investigates the effects of a DNA-V training on Italian adolescent competitive swimmers, focusing on the development of psychological flexibility and its impact on motivation and resilience in training and competition.
Method
This idiographic longitudinal study involved four athletes...
Understanding others’ mental states is a fundamental human ability, essential for navigating a complex and dynamic social world. Identifying the brain areas involved in this capacity is crucial, given the clinical and social consequences that difficulties in social understanding can entail. To better delineate the roles of the mentalizing and mirror systems, we performed a functional MRI study...
BACKGROUND
Face perception relies on global processing, minimizing attention to individual features. Inversion disrupts this by impairing spatial configuration, shifting focus to local features (Maurer et al., 2002). Motor planning also shapes perception: precision grips enhance local analysis, while power grips promote global processing (Job et al., 2017). This study tests whether grip...
INTRODUCTION
Blink reflexes have been shown to be a valuable approach to explore age-related physiological changes in brainstem function. However, the Hand Blink Reflex (HBR), a subcortical defensive response that enhances when the stimulated hand is inside the face’s peripersonal space, has not been studied in ageing context. Hence, the present study aimed to investigate age-related HBR...
INTRODUCTION. Implicit adaptation is an important issue in extended reality settings. Here we investigated adaptation by artificially amplifying the visual consequences of head rotation (Augmented Gaze-AG) to facilitate immersive visual exploration in a 360-deg telepresence environment (virtual biking).
METHODS. Eighteen participants completed three 3-minutes exposures performing a task...
Background:
Recognizing others’ intentions is pivotal for social interaction and involves the mirror neuron system (MNS) and the mentalizing system (MENT). Yet the organization and interaction of these systems during self- versus other-directed action observation are not fully understood. EEG research associates MNS activity with mu rhythms (alpha: 8–13 Hz; beta: 15–20 Hz) and has revealed...
Sebbene siano state distinte diverse tipologie di spazio (Tversky et al., 1999), gli studi presenti in letteratura hanno prevalentemente indagato lo sviluppo di ciascuna dimensione spaziale separatamente. Pertanto, questo studio intende esaminare, all’interno dello stesso campione, l’elaborazione dello spazio navigazionale e dello spazio corporeo interno ed esterno, confrontando giovani...
Studi condotti su giovani adulti hanno dimostrato che i meccanismi di controllo pro-attivo top-down sono attivi durante compiti di ricerca visiva, anche in assenza temporanea di distrattori (Petilli et al., 2018). Il presente studio indaga se l’invecchiamento influenzi tali processi, esaminando il ruolo dell’aspettativa del distrattore in adulti anziani sani, tramite il paradigma della...
Objective
Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain, fatigue, and psychological symptoms, significantly affecting quality of life. Non-pharmacological treatments, such as non-invasive neuromodulation and exercise therapy, have shown potential in alleviating symptoms. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) alone or...
Language acquisition depends on critical periods in early ontogeny when the brain is especially sensitive to linguistic input. For typically hearing children, auditory exposure during this time supports the development of the neural systems underpinning speech perception and comprehension. In cases of congenital deafness, although hearing can be restored through cochlear implantation, this...
The nature of numerical representations, whether abstract and notation-independent, still sparks a fervent debate in the numerical cognition field. Recent behavioral evidence using distributional semantics have challenged the abstract coding view, showing that linguistic experience accounts for notation-dependent distance effects. This study examines whether linguistic priors also account for...
Open Science (OS) seeks to make scientific research more accessible, transparent, and reproducible by promoting practices such as open data and open methods. However, despite the growing importance of these practices, there is currently no comprehensive tool to systematically assess the extent to which research studies adhere to OS principles. The aim of this study was to develop an...
The Workplace Ostracism Scale (WOS) is the most widely used instrument to assess Workplace Ostracism (WO), a particular form of social exclusion, comprising individual perceptions of being ignored and/or excluded by colleagues or supervisors at the workplace. The goal of the study was to contribute to the cross-validation of the WOS on an Italian sample (N = 441; 53.3% males; Mage = 35, SD =...
Lo sguardo altrui è un potente e automatico attrattore dell’attenzione. La tendenza a seguire lo sguardo altrui, nota come gaze-following behaviour (GFB), si riferisce all’orientamento automatico dell’attenzione nella direzione dello sguardo di un altro individuo. Tuttavia, il GFB può essere modulato o inibito da processi di categorizzazione sociale. Nell’ambito della categorizzazione...
Per sviluppare il potenziale degli studenti mediante percorsi didattici e formativi personalizzati, è importante disporre di strumenti in grado di rilevare le configurazioni di interessi, potenzialità e attitudini di ogni individuo. Per rispondere a tale obiettivo è stato sviluppato lo strumento SOPI, volto a misurare il potenziale degli studenti in nove domini (verbale, logico-matematico,...
Numerosi studi hanno evidenziato una relazione tra qualità del sonno e regolazione emotiva, suggerendo che il sonno svolga un ruolo cruciale nei processi emotivi. Tuttavia pochi studi hanno indagato tali processi nella vita quotidiana. Il presente studio ha l’obiettivo di osservare la relazione bidirezionale a livello within tra qualità del sonno e affettività nella quotidianità. Inoltre, si...
Traditional research on the self primarily focuses on the distinction between minimal and narrative aspects of the self, yet little is known about the broader, dynamic interactions between self aspects proposed by the Pattern Theory of Self (PTS). In this exploratory study, we employed a mental imagery paradigm designed to operationalize the PTS-derived self aspects, alongside benchmark...
L’infortunio sportivo rappresenta un evento critico nella carriera di un atleta con impatti significativi sul suo benessere psicologico.Il presente studio,con campionamento in corso,propone un intervento innovativo che mira a promuovere l'autostima,la resilienza e la compassione verso sé stessi in atleti agonisti in fase di riabilitazione post infortunio.Il campione (n=20;10 sport...
Over the last decades, various models have addressed the mechanisms of conceptual processing in bicultural bilinguals. Among these, the Shared Distributed Asymmetrical Model (Dong et al., 2005) proposes that bilinguals have partially overlapping yet asymmetrically distributed conceptual representations for their two languages: initially, L2 words only map onto L1-based conceptual...
Introduction:
It is well known that touching and being touched is crucial for neuro-cognitive development but very little is known regarding the development of social attention through touch in children, especially in visually impaired ones. This study investigates whether visual deprivation affects the ability to discriminate the source of affective touch, adapting a previous...
Human perceptual decisions are biased by prior events, a phenomenon known as serial dependence. For instance, when judging the orientation of a sequence of stimuli, responses are systematically biased toward the orientation of the preceding stimulus. This phenomenon has been extensively studied focusing on one participant at a time, thus limiting the findings to the level of individual...
A coherent sense of body ownership relies on the integration of top-down and bottom-up sensory signals. Disrupting the coherence of these signals through experimental manipulations (e.g., the rubber hand illusion or mirror box illusion) has been shown to affect body representation and peripheral physiological activity, such as body temperature. However, recent studies have debated these...
Background and objective: Motor imagery (MI) can improve motor performance and counteract neurological impairment, although its effectiveness varies across individuals according to hypnotizability levels. The study investigated whether not only highly hypnotizable (highs), but also medium (mediums) and low hypnotizable individuals (lows) can improve their actual and imagined motor performance...
Nature-based solutions (NBS), such as urban parks and large flowerbeds, are increasingly recognized for promoting human health by enhancing physical and mental well-being. Accessible natural environments can encourage physical activity, such as nature-based walking, supporting mental health, especially among older adults. However, few studies have examined how to design and implement...
INTRODUZIONE
Tra le abilità di computazione, il calcolo esatto rappresenta una competenza formalmente e la più indagata. L'approssimazione (es. 28+17 è < o > 50?) e la stima di grandezze (es. “Quanto è lungo un treno ad alta velocità?”) si basano invece su meccanismi sviluppati in età precoce e meno allenati nel contesto scolastico. Nonostante la loro rilevanza ecologica, i meccanismi...
È ormai consolidato come la variabilità interpersonale e intrapersonale, in termini di funzionamento cognitivo ed emotivo, aumenti all’avanzare dell’età. Questa variabilità potrebbe evidenziarsi anche nel margine di miglioramento che può derivare da interventi di stimolazione cognitiva, soprattutto rivolti a competenze più complesse ed essenziali al mantenimento dell’autonomia funzionale....
Superstitious beliefs are culturally prevalent in western and eastern societies. Sometimes they can affect the decision process, as we can see the fields of economics, marketing and sports. In the realm of decision making under risk, Prospect Theory offers a solid background capable of capturing people’s preferences, namely, their tendencies to avoid losses. We are interested to see if...
Numeracy has significant implications throughout the life course, and its age-induced decline represents a vulnerability factor in elderly population. We studied the impact of healthy aging on the ability to access basic symbolic and non-symbolic numerical representations using a parity judgment task (PJT), with three numerical formats: Arabic digits (N), Finger representations (F), and Dots...
Background
As digital health technologies advance, neuropsychological assessment is undergoing a shift toward more standardized, efficient, and accessible formats. Tablet-based solutions enable automated testing, precise response tracking, and remote delivery—expanding opportunities for early cognitive screening. In this context, we developed TAP-COG, a digital battery for cognitive...
Trait Emotional Intelligence (Trait EI) is conceptualized as a multidimensional and hierarchical construct. However, traditional psychometric models have struggled to fully capture its theoretical complexity. This study proposes a cross-cultural validation of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire Full-Form (TEIQue-FF) across British and Italian samples, adopting a bifactor Exploratory...
Introduction: The investigation of the neural mechanisms underlying deceptive behavior has historically attracted great interest due to its potential applications in forensic and legal contexts. Over the past decades, research on lie detection has transitioned from behavioral and physiological methodologies to the application of neuroimaging techniques. Among these, functional magnetic...
Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is a clinical condition characterized by cognitive deficits that do not significantly interfere with daily functioning. It represents an intermediate stage between normal aging and dementia and is considered a preclinical phase that may progress to more severe neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease. In addition to cognitive symptoms, MCI has...
Task set inhibition consists of actively suppressing interference from recently executed tasks. Previous research has demonstrated that returning to a previously abandoned task (e.g. ABA) is more difficult than switching to less recently performed tasks (e.g. CBA) in terms of slower reaction times (RTs) and higher error rates. Though consistently observed in cued task-switching paradigms, it...
Intro: The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large language models (LLMs), is transforming numerous aspects of daily life, with these tools increasingly used as sources of information and problem-solving.
Method: This study aims to investigate the general level of trust people place in AI-generated responses, examine whether this trust varies depending on...
Previous research has shown that motor plans related to hand-object interactions are activated during the semantic processing of graspable object nouns. Adjectives expressing object features can modulate these motor plans, indicating sensorimotor integration. The present experiment investigated the role of verbs in this noun-adjective integration. Each trial began with a verb presented at the...
Smartphones integrate text suggestion systems that offer word completion from partially typed input. These tools alter the linearity of the writing process by introducing a continuous shift between typing and reading suggestions. While they offer cognitive benefits—such as reducing spelling errors and memory load—their impact on writing fluency remains debated. One key factor may be the...
Introduction: Functional Motor Disorders (FMD) is yet poorly understood, with inconsistent limb weakness, tremors, dystonia, and gait disturbances. Delayed diagnosis and inadequate treatment lead to severe disability. Predictive coding theories suggest symptoms stem from disrupted neural circuits integrating interoception, exteroception, and motor control, distorting bodily...
Female-related and male-related stereotypes have so far been examined under the unique construct of “gender stereotypes”. However, growing behavioral and neural evidence has suggested that they may constitute distinct phenomena. Our current research supports this claim by capitalizing on the uniqueness of human faces to more strongly trigger gender stereotypes than verbal labels.
Previous...
Ageing is a complex phenomenon involving physical, social, and cognitive changes. While much of the literature has focused on cognitive decline—often seen as a progressive impairment to be addressed through targeted training—we propose a broader and more dynamic perspective. Rather than viewing ageing as a process of deterioration, we consider it an evolution and adaptation to new life...
Sleep is fundamental to physical and mental health and plays a critical role in overall well-being. While it is well-established that sleep disturbances are a risk factor for mental disorders, and that insomnia is a severe condition in itself, the assessment and monitoring of sleep have become increasingly important not only in clinical populations but also in the general population across all...
While adaptive administration procedures are widely adopted in educational assessment, their application in psychological testing remains limited. A plausible reason for this delay may lie in the rigid administration rules required by classical test theory, that is all individuals receive the same items in the same order and must respond to all of them. These constraints are incompatible with...
Prendere decisioni efficaci nei contesti sociali richiede la capacità di comprendere dinamiche interpersonali complesse, spesso caratterizzate da implicazioni morali. Questo processo è supportato dalla cognizione sociale, che può risultare compromessa in condizioni come il Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), una fase di transizione tra invecchiamento sano e patologico. In questi casi, le...
As a general rule of thumb, the higher the number of items in a test, the better the measurement in terms of validity and reliability. However, there is a trade-off between the number of administered items and response quality. One of the challenges psychometrics and mathematical psychology have tackled is the development of short forms that could preserve the validity and reliability of...
Il processo decisionale rappresenta il risultato dell’integrazione di componenti cognitive, emotive e sociali, essenziali per comprendere, valutare e agire in situazioni complesse, spesso centrali nella vita quotidiana. Il presente simposio si propone di approfondire le dinamiche che regolano il decision-making e le difficoltà che possono emergere nel momento della scelta, attraverso...
Over 70% of peripartum women experience insomnia symptoms. Sleep difficulties increase psychological and health risks during peripartum. Longitudinal psychophysiological research is lacking. This ongoing longitudinal study include ecological-momentary assessment (EMA) and randomized controlled trial (RCT) designs to understand the interplay between physiological, hormonal and subjective...
As smartphones have become central to everyday digital interaction, typing on touchscreen keyboards has emerged as a compelling entry point for studying human sensorimotor behavior. This theoretical contribution explores the foundations of mobile typing as a motor skill, synthesizing a growing body of interdisciplinary literature that positions it as both a performance task and a behavioral...
From the tap of a thumb on a smartphone screen to the deliberate keystroke on a keyboard, digital writing encompasses a spectrum of sensorimotor behaviors that offer insights into human cognition and motor control. Building upon the understanding of digital interaction, this symposium brings together distinct yet interconnected contributions that investigate how writing unfolds on touchscreen...
Traditional theories of personality, such as the HEXACO model, postulate a universal structure composed of six fundamental traits. However, aging involves significant changes in individuals' lives, including cognition and sociality, which can affect personality expression and perception. The present contribution presents two studies aimed at exploring the structure and evaluation of...
Computerized adaptive assessment algorithms are a promising alternative to traditional fixed-length questionnaires in clinical assessment. Their ability to dynamically select the most informative items based on individual responses allows for substantial reductions in administration time while preserving the precision of trait estimation. As such, adaptive instruments function as personalized...
In daily life, humans produce complex and subtle hand and finger movements, such as playing instruments or typing on keyboards and touchscreens. Typing on smartphones is common in two main domains: (i) content consumption (e.g., browsing, reading news), and (ii) content generation (e.g., writing messages, posting on social media). Recent findings show that merely observing smartphone typing...
Aging refers to a series of changes occurring throughout the lifespan in physical and mental health, cognitive abilities, and personality traits. While aging has often been associated with a progressive and inevitable decline, recent findings suggest that this is not the case for many variables. Given the adaptive nature of this process, it is crucial to investigate the relationships among...
Introduction: Previous research has shown a strong link between sleep and eating patterns. However, when considering disordered eating behaviors, such as in eating disorders, findings are less consistent. Some studies report reduced sleep quality in individuals with bulimia nervosa and, more notably, anorexia nervosa, but further research is needed to clarify these relationships.
Method:...
Chronic pain is a complex and multidimensional neurological condition that profoundly affects the daily functioning of individuals, impairing physical, emotional, and cognitive aspects. Among chronic pain syndromes, fibromyalgia (FM) is distinguished by its high prevalence and association with subjective cognitive disorders, commonly known as "fibrofog." Despite the growing interest in the...
Tests covering broad subject areas may consist of many items, resulting in long and tiring assessments. Nevertheless, computerized adaptive testing may not be a viable solution if the necessary hardware is unavailable or if fairness issues arise. The talk is framed within competence-based knowledge space theory, which enables the assessment of the latent set of attributes (such as skills or...
Mobile typing is a widespread activity. Despite its ubiquity, mobile typing has predominantly been examined in controlled, low-ecological settings. The focus has often been limited to conventional metrics such as speed and error rate. The present study adopts a novel methodological approach to investigate behavioral aspects of mobile typing that have received limited attention — specifically,...
Cognitive reserve (CR) is the ability of the brain to facilitate higher cognitive performance despite significant life-related brain changes during aging. Thus, CR may play a relevant role in protecting against pathological aging. Generally, CR is estimated by questionnaires evaluating schooling, working, and leisure time. Executive functions are high-level cognitive processes (e.g.,...
Background:
Insomnia disorder has been associated with altered EEG dynamics during both slow-wave and REM sleep. The REM sleep instability hypothesis has recently emerged as a novel framework for understanding insomnia, though EEG studies remain limited. EEG complexity, which reflects the richness and variability of temporal brain activity, may provide new insights into the dynamic...
La categorizzazione emotiva di stimoli verbali prevede l’integrazione di informazioni semantiche ed emotive, attivando meccanismi decisionali che coinvolgono strutture corticali e sottocorticali. In questo contesto, l’elettroencefalografia (EEG) è uno strumento utile per studiare i processi decisionali legati alla risposta comportamentale emotiva segregandoli dai processi di elaborazione dello...
Writing is a complex cognitive activity involving both orthographic and motor components.
Over time, these processes have evolved in response to changes in writing media. The dual-route theoretical approach considered that orthographic and motor processes function independently and in a sequential fashion: once spelling retrieval is over motor execution
begins (McCloskey & Rapp, 2017)....
Cognitive performance tends to decline with aging; however, numerous studies have highlighted the protective effects of physical exercise which contributes to better oxygenation and vascular supply to the brain (Goenarjo et al., 2020; Chung et al., 2008). The present study investigated the impact of both Motor Reserve (MR), a cumulative measure of lifetime physical activity and Current...
Kinematic analysis of writing movements offers a valuable window into the cognitive and motor processes involved in written language production. Traditionally employed to assess motor fluency, such analysis also provides insights into how linguistic variables—such as lexicality, orthographic complexity, or syllabic structure—affect the timing and dynamics of writing. This presentation focus on...
Le valutazioni psicopatologico-forensi sulla capacità d’intendere e di volere rappresentano un momento cruciale del processo penale, con importanti ricadute sul destino dell’imputato e sull’impiego delle risorse pubbliche. Decisioni distorte possono condurre a esiti opposti ugualmente problematici: la piena condanna di soggetti totalmente o parzialmente non imputabili, che accedono al sistema...
Sleep is fundamental for physical, emotional, and cognitive well-being across the lifespan, with its restorative functions becoming increasingly critical in aging. In older adults, sleep alterations are not only frequent but may also signal the early onset of neurodegenerative processes. Among these, REM sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD) has emerged as a key model representing a prodromal stage of...
Item Response Theory (IRT) provides an ideal framework for shortening existing tests given the detailed information on the measurement precision of each item with respect to different levels of the latent trait. As such, brief yet psychometrically sound short test forms (STFs), can be developed to prevent the loss of quality in the response process due to the respondents' fatigue. This...
The Lancet Commission report (Livingston et al., 2020) offers an updated, comprehensive overview of dementia prevention, identifying twelve modifiable risk factors within a life-course model. This approach highlights how exposures and behaviors across life stages contribute to dementia risk and provides a basis for early, multifaceted prevention strategies.
This study evaluates the...
Lo studio della cognizione tecnologica costituisce un’area emergente delle neuroscienze cognitive volta a indagare i meccanismi neurali e cognitivi che consentono agli esseri umani di comprendere, manipolare e interagire con artefatti tecnologici a diversi livelli di complessità. In questo contributo introduco un modello neurocognitivo integrato di comprensione del mondo fisico, di tipo...
Il decision making morale è frequentemente associato all’empatia, ma il ruolo specifico dell’empatia affettiva di tratto rimane poco esplorato. Il presente studio ha indagato l’influenza di elevati livelli di empatia affettiva sulle scelte morali, considerando i tratti borderline di personalità (BP), noti per la loro accentuata sensibilità emotiva. Un campione di 78 partecipanti non clinici è...
Objective: This study aims to identify neurobiological correlations between cognitive, emotional/behavioral, and adaptive functioning, sleep disorders, and specific neuropsychological domains in individuals with Smith-Magenis Syndrome (SMS). A secondary aim is to define more effective rehabilitation strategies targeting deficient domains to support functional and adaptive...
The Crossed-Hands Deficit (CHD)—a performance cost in spatial localization tasks when hands are crossed—stems from conflicts between body-centered and external reference frames. While this phenomenon is well-established, the role of inter-manual distance and its interaction with posture in shaping audio-tactile integration remains largely unexplored, particularly from a developmental...
Le asimmetrie funzionali rappresentano un modo per adattarsi alle diverse condizioni ambientali che sono in continuo cambiamento. L’esempio più evidente di asimmetria cerebrale nell’uomo è la dominanza manuale (handedness) nei diversi compiti motori e manipolatori quotidiani. Seppur la maggioranza degli esseri umani è destrimane, è presente una forte variabilità individuale e non è ancora...
Emotional states can alter our perception of time. Although this is explained by an increase in arousal, the literature that controlled the arousal state physiologically is scarce. This study aims to investigate the complex relationship between emotion-induced physiological arousal and timing abilities. We examined whether variations in arousal levels in response to negative stimuli were...
Introduction: Intellectual giftedness (IG) is defined by superior cognitive functioning. Despite cognitive strengths, gifted individuals often exhibit asynchronous development and emotional or learning difficulties. In the digital era – characterized by rapid information flow and increased cognitive load – the emergence of a “digitised mind” may alter neurocognitive trajectories. This study...
Emerging evidence suggests that decision-making extends into motor response execution. In this study, we assessed the hypothesis that motor decisional components are related to decision confidence. In a visual lexical decision task, participants categorized strings of letters as words or nonwords, and electromyographic (EMG) traces were used to partition reaction times (RTs) into premotor time...
Gambling literature lacks person-centered studies examining the combined effect of different psychological characteristics in capturing adolescents vulnerable to problem gambling. This study investigated how cognitive factors, individual differences, and emotional distress interact to shape distinct psychological profiles among adolescent gamblers. The purpose was to identify which...
Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has raised critical concerns about its potential impact on children’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development. The BECOME project (Behavioral, Emotional, and Cognitive Observations with Generator Real World Data) aimed to investigate developmental trajectories from childhood to adolescence using real-world psychometric data. The study primarily...
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly embedded in high-stakes domains such as healthcare, law, and public administration, automation bias (AB) -the tendency to over-rely on automated recommendations- has emerged as a critical challenge in human-AI collaboration. While previous reviews have examined AB in traditional computer-assisted decision-making, research on its implications...
Considerata la loro prossimità filogenetica con l’uomo, i primati non umani hanno suscitato un interesse particolare nella ricerca comparativa volta a individuare possibili precursori della specializzazione emisferica umana. Inoltre, la presenza di una mano prensile caratterizzata da sofisticate abilità manipolative ha reso queste specie un modello fondamentale per approfondire le origini e la...
Disgust plays a critical role in shaping moral behavior, particularly in situations involving violations of social or bodily norms. While traditional cognitive-behavioral approaches often struggle to modulate maladaptive disgust responses, recent neuromodulation techniques offer promising alternatives. In a series of studies, we investigated whether transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation...
Il sonno sembra favorire il processamento delle informazioni emotive, promuovendo il consolidamento della memoria e regolando la reattività agli stimoli emotivi. Tuttavia, i meccanismi attraverso cui i diversi stadi del sonno (NREM e REM) influenzano tali processi restano oggetto di dibattito. Nel presente studio abbiamo indagato il contributo del sonno REM al processamento emotivo durante un...
Adjusting to minor psychosocial stressors, such as public speaking, is crucial for promoting health and well-being. However, not everyone manages this effectively, which can lead to chronic stress, illness, and affective psychopathology. According to the perseverative cognition hypothesis, repetitive negative thinking like worry and rumination prolongs stress-related affective and...
The 2024 U.S. presidential election campaign was marked by an assassination attempt on Donald Trump. The incident sparked intense public debate and gave rise to various alternative theories, including claims that the attack was staged by Trump himself or orchestrated by the Democratic Party.
Grounded in literature on individual differences linked to conspiratorial thinking, the present...
While the impact of sleep quality on basic cognitive functions is well established, its effect on more complex daily activities - particularly those involving the simultaneous employment of cognitive and motor abilities (dual-tasking) - remains less understood. Interference arising from the concurrent performance of cognitive and motor tasks is commonly assessed through the dual-task effect...
Introduction
Predictive brain theories suggest that the brain builds internal models to anticipate sensory inputs. Recent findings show that such models influence early sensory representations, shaping perceptual outcomes. Here, we hypothesized that this integration process extends along the cortical hierarchy, reaching the motor system. Specifically, we propose that cortico-spinal...
Scientific evidence suggest that higher levels of well-being are associated with slower cognitive decline during aging. We aimed to investigate the relationship between the Life Satisfaction Index (LSI) - one of the most frequently used measures of well-being - and cognitive decline, considering the role of cognitive reserve (CR) and sex differences. Longitudinal data from the Swedish National...
Slow-wave oscillations (SOs) orchestrate memory-relevant communication between neocortex and hippocampus, yet field-ready tools for their manipulation remain scarce. We present a fully home-based protocol that couples a customised ZMax EEG headband with the real-time EventIDE algorithm to deliver phase-targeted auditory stimulation (PTAS). The system delivers 50-ms, 45-dB bursts of pink noise...
Introduction: Empathy, comprising both affective and cognitive components, crucially relies on empathic accuracy (EA)—the ability to correctly recognize others' emotions. Emotional contagion, facilitated by facial mimicry, enhances EA by improving emotional understanding. The enfacement illusion, a visuo-tactile multisensory paradigm, has been shown to modulate self–other boundaries,...
In everyday life, we all experience that some people move in a similar way to each other, while others appear more dissimilar in their gestures. However, a comprehensive approach to quantify and manipulate the degree of “motor similarity” between individuals has still to be consolidated.
To fill this gap, the ACT2 project built a wide upper-limb kinematics database of 90 healthy right-handed...
All’interno del filone di ricerca che indaga il ruolo del “pensare per contrari” in vari processi di ragionamento (per una rassegna vedi Branchini et al., 2021), lo studio presentato analizza se i contrari aiutino nella generazione e verifica di ipotesi nel compito 2-4-6 di Wason (1960), che ha generalmente un basso indice di successo (meno del 40%).
180 partecipanti sono stati distribuiti in...
Il crescente sviluppo nel campo dell’e-health ha evidenziato nuove opportunità per la cura e l’intervento psicologico a distanza, in particolare attraverso tecnologie indossabili che possano favorire un senso di autoefficacia. Partendo da questa premessa, il presente studio ha avuto l’obiettivo di indagare il ruolo delle neurotecnologie di supporto all’interno di protocolli di neuroempowerment...
Introduction: The sequence of cortical down-states, up-states, and spindle events provides a core electrophysiological basis for memory consolidation during non-REM sleep. However, the mechanisms orchestrating this coordination remain elusive. Here, we applied phase-targeted auditory stimulation (PTAS) at slow oscillation (SO) phases of maximal excitability or inhibition to identify...
The ability to perceive, interpret, and regulate internal bodily signals - known as interoception - is fundamental to emotional regulation, decision-making, and well-being. Altered interoception has been increasingly recognized as a central feature of eating disorders (EDs) such as anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and binge-eating disorder (BED).
Training methods designed to...
Introduction: Cognitive reserve (CR) refers to the capacity of the brain to sustain cognitive performance despite age-related changes or pathophysiological conditions. Human brain mapping techniques, particularly task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (tb-fMRI), have been instrumental in exploring its underlying neural correlates. CR is traditionally assessed through socio-behavioral...
Exploring a visual scene is a fundamental human behavior that supports understanding and navigation. During this process, unexpected events may appear in the visual periphery, requiring rapid, coordinated responses. To support this, the visual and oculomotor systems operate in a continuous loop of perception and action —yet before attention and gaze can shift toward new stimuli, this loop is...
The combination of Noninvasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS) and electroencephalography (EEG) provides a powerful and precise method to explore the dynamic neural processes underpinning human cognition. Here, we emphasize transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as a leading NIBS modality integrated with EEG to offer direct causal insights into how cognitive functions emerge and evolve over time....
La relazione tra attenzione ed emozioni è un elemento centrale nello studio dei bias attentivi, ossia la tendenza del sistema attentivo a privilegiare l’elaborazione di stimoli con valenza emotiva negativa, come volti arrabbiati o parole con contenuto minaccioso. Questo fenomeno è particolarmente rilevante in condizioni cliniche come l’ansia e la depressione, in cui si osserva una...
La rilevanza clinica e scientifica della cognizione sociale è stata chiaramente evidenziata nell'ultima edizione del Manuale Diagnostico e Statistico dei Disturbi Mentali (DSM-5), pubblicato nel 2013, in cui la cognizione sociale è stata riconosciuta come uno dei sei componenti fondamentali del funzionamento neuro-cognitivo. Questo simposio si propone di presentare recenti e significativi...
Il presente lavoro indaga come le funzioni esecutive (FE) concorrano all’elaborazione di un’esperienza emotiva in competizione con compiti concorrenti, con conseguenze sia a breve termine (difficoltà nell'esecuzione del compito) che a lungo termine (prolungamento dell’elaborazione emotiva in termini di ruminazione). Si ipotizza che tali conseguenze siano influenzate dalla componente esecutiva...
L’Agenda 2030 per lo Sviluppo Sostenibile pone al centro la salute, il benessere e la promozione di comportamenti responsabili come elementi chiave per costruire società più eque e resilienti. In questo contesto, la capacità di valutare costrutti psicologici quali la qualità della vita, il rischio di comportamenti problematici o l’accettabilità di innovazioni sostenibili è cruciale per...
The symposium explores the structure of semantic memory through the lens of multidimensionality, multimodality, and control, integrating theoretical perspectives with empirical evidence.
The first talk investigates how semantic memory is shaped by cumulative linguistic, visual, and auditory experiences. Using distributional semantic models and EEG data, it reveals that modality-specific and...
INTRODUCTION: Differential diagnosis in adulthood requires tools that can capture the complexity and overlap between disorders, such as Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In this regard, the present study aims to explore the structure of the Conners' Adult ADHD Rating Scales (CAARS) and its relationship with the Social Responsiveness Scale-2...
A central question in cognitive science is how prior knowledge—shaped by experience across modalities—guides the formation and organization of semantic memory. In this talk, I will explore how semantic memory emerges from cumulative linguistic, visual, and auditory experiences. Drawing on distributional semantic models, I will show how structured patterns reflect deeply rooted...
The cerebellum was known to have a role in motor coordination and planning; however, recent studies demonstrated that the posterior sectors of the cerebellum are also involved in cognition and social cognition. Several neuroimaging studies pointed specifically to the cerebellar hemispheres in supporting higher-order social processes. In the present study, we used transcranial magnetic...
BACKGROUND. The Benefit Finding Scale (BFS) is a 17-item measure assessing the perception of positive contributions to one’s life deriving from stressful and life-threatening experiences. We aimed to investigate construct validity (structural validity, measurement invariance between sub-samples) and reliability (internal consistency) of the BFS in people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) and...
I disturbi affettivi sono associati ad alterazioni nel controllo dell’orientamento spaziale dell’attenzione (attentional bias, AB). In particolare, i soggetti con sintomi ansiosi tendono a mostrare ipervigilanza verso stimoli negativi, mentre quelli con sintomi depressivi tendono a mantenere l’attenzione focalizzata più a lungo su tali stimoli. In questo studio abbiamo utilizzato la versione...
Several TMS investigations have demonstrated that action observation (AO) exerts a facilitatory effect on corticospinal excitability (CSE). In a large-scale study involving over 100 participants, we observed that AO not only increased MEP amplitude but also significantly reduced its variability. These findings suggest that the baseline variability in MEPs amplitude (when motor rhythms are...
The neural bases of individual differences in empathy subcomponents are still debated. We employed brain morphometry to investigate the neurostructural bases of individual and sex differences in specific empathy facets in 124 healthy individuals who completed the Balanced-Emotional-Empathy-Scale (BEES), and both the emotional/cognitive and self/other-oriented empathy subscales of the...
The embodied cognition framework, when applied to concrete concepts, highlights the central role of sensory-motor experience in shaping conceptual knowledge. Empirical evidence supports the idea that concrete concepts are represented across distributed, multimodal brain regions. Extending this framework to abstract concepts suggests that these too are grounded along multiple experiential...
Background. There are many patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) of quality of life (QoL) and health-related QoL (HRQoL) in MS. However, a comprehensive assessment of the most suitable (HR)QoL PROMs for use in an evaluative application is lacking. This systematic review aimed to assess the psychometric properties of (HR)QoL PROMs for people with MS.
Methods. We conducted a...
Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare neurodevelopmental condition marked by cognitive delays and atypical social profiles. This study examined the neural mechanisms underpinning action prediction in WS through electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings of mu rhythm - a marker of sensorimotor simulation - during a probabilistic action prediction task. Participants included individuals with WS, an...
Individuals with depression tend to exhibit difficulties in attentional control which leads them to persistently focus on negatively valenced information. Recent studies suggest that such attentional biases (AB) can be reduced through Attention Bias Modification (ABM) training, resulting in a decrease in depressive symptoms. Although ABM represents an accessible and well-tolerated treatment,...
Abstract concepts (e.g., fantasy, republic), although not dichotomously opposed to concrete concepts (e.g., hammer, cherry), differ from them in the weight of many semantic dimensions – for abstract concepts, the linguistic, inner, and social experience weigh more than the sensorimotor one. Recent literature has highlighted the need to identify various subkinds of abstract concepts, from...
Introduction
According to the predictive coding framework, perception results from integrating sensory inputs with prior knowledge. Past experience constitutes a fundamental source of priors by enabling the extraction of statistical regularities from the environment, a process known as statistical learning. A major challenge is to understand how learned statistics are implemented within...
Introduction: Current neuroscientific literature suggests the cerebellum is a key node in the predictive social brain. Although social and mentalizing deficits have been observed in patients with cerebellar neurodegenerative diseases (CNDp), social-prediction processes have not been systematically studied. To address this, we examined social-prediction, social-cognition abilities, and...
Questo contributo esplora il potenziale dei modelli linguistici di grandi dimensioni (Large Language Models, o LLM) per inferire il rischio di consumo problematico di alcol a partire da contenuti pubblicati su piattaforme social media. In un primo studio (N = 208), due LLM (Gemini 1.5 Pro e GPT-4o), sono stati utilizzati con un approccio zero-shot prompting per stimare il consumo problematico...
L’attenzione è un processo cognitivo che permette di selezionare alcuni stimoli ambientali, ignorandone altri. In contesti sociali, l’attenzione visiva viene rapidamente diretta verso altri individui, in particolare nella direzione in cui orientano il proprio sguardo. Questo fenomeno, noto come gaze-following, può essere influenzato da meccanismi top-down. Evidenze sperimentali hanno infatti...
Introduction
Confidence—the capacity to assess the correctness of one’s own decisions—is a central component of metacognitive evaluation. While perceptual choices are increasingly understood to be shaped by prior expectations, the extent to which these expectations also bias confidence judgments remains largely unknown. Moreover, the oscillatory mechanisms supporting this integration have yet...
During social interactions, we adjust the interpersonal distance we set between ourselves and others depending on how close we prefer to stand relative to an unknown individual. Critically, when the physical boundaries of the personal space are violated, individuals perceive a
prompt feeling of discomfort. In this respect, bodily expressions represent important cues during interpersonal...
Introduzione
Favorire la consapevolezza dei cittadini e promuovere scelte alimentari sane e sostenibili è una delle priorità dell’Agenda ONU 2030. La food transition, che comprende la diversificazione delle diete anche attraverso i novel food (Regolamento UE 2015/2283), mira a ridurre le criticità della produzione convenzionale di alimenti di origine animale. Alcuni alimenti a base di insetti...
La presentazione rivaluta criticamente i risultati di alcuni studi del nostro gruppo che hanno indagato l'interazione tra emozioni, attenzione e memoria in diverse popolazioni e contesti.
In primo luogo, alcuni studi hanno dimostrato che i diversi bias attentivi (AB; facilitazione, evitamento, disancoraggio) verso la minaccia operano con specifici time-course. Inoltre, l’utilizzo...
Nel dibattito psicologico sui videogiochi, è ancora dominante una narrazione patologizzante che associa le tecnologie ludiche prevalentemente a dipendenza, isolamento e disagio. In questa presentazione propongo una prospettiva alternativa, che considera il videogioco come pratica situata, mediata e potenzialmente trasformativa per la salute mentale.
Partendo da una revisione sistematica della...
The electrophysiological distinction between proper neural correlates of visual consciousness and post-perceptual processes remains a debated topic, with many questions about the timing and location of the respective neural mechanisms still open. To shed light on this matter, we employed a partial report paradigm: this allowed us to keep activity associated with stimulus perception identical...
Introduzione: Nonostante l’italiano sia oggetto di numerosi studi psicolinguistici, mancano ancora risorse su larga scala per l’analisi del linguaggio. Negli ultimi anni, il crowdsourcing si è affermato come metodo efficace per raccogliere dati sul riconoscimento delle parole, coinvolgendo ampi gruppi di partecipanti con caratteristiche demografiche diverse, al di fuori dei tradizionali...
Understanding math anxiety in adults is important because it leads to a cycle of low confidence and anxiety that can affect academic and/or work performance. It also was very challenging given that most existing tools focus this construct on younger populations and school-related contexts—such as classrooms, teachers, and exams—, raising concerns about their relevance and ecological validity...
Pazienti con disturbo da Stress Post-Traumatico (PTSD) possono mostrare deficit nel controllo inibitorio rispetto ad individui traumatizzati che non sviluppano il disturbo; tuttavia, i meccanismi neurocognitivi in risposta al trauma che permettono di distinguere tra resilienza e PTSD risultano poco esplorati.
Mediante l’uso del Flanker task a disegno fattoriale durante registrazione...
La ricerca sulle relazioni tra videogiochi e sonno si è per anni focalizzata principalmente sui possibili effetti negativi del gaming eccessivo e/o inadeguato sulla qualità del sonno (Kemp et al., 2017; Peracchia & Curcio, 2018), indagando assai meno una serie di aspetti che rendono tale rapporto più articolato. Una nostra recente review sistematica (De Rosa et al., 2024) ha mostrato come gli...
Alcuni studi hanno mostrato che la paura migliora la sensibilità al contrasto visivo, facilitando la discriminazione di stimoli in condizioni di scarsa visibilità (Phelps et al., 2006). Tuttavia, non è chiaro se questo vantaggio percettivo si estenda alle emozioni positive, che promuovono un'elaborazione globale degli stimoli (Uddenberg & Shim, 2015). Inoltre, fattori individuali (alessitimia,...
I rapidi progressi dei Large Language Models (LLM) come ChatGPT hanno sollevato interrogativi fondamentali sulla loro capacità di approssimare la cognizione umana. Mentre i LLM eccellono nella competenza linguistica formale, la loro competenza linguistica funzionale—che comprende conoscenza del mondo, modellazione delle situazioni e fondamento senso-motorio—rimane oggetto di dibattito. Questo...
L’Indice di Overlapping (η) stima l’area condivisa tra due densità empiriche tra 0 a 1 (0 - nessuna sovrapposizione, 1 - sovrapposizione completa). In contesti sperimentali, dove le distribuzioni empiriche sono frequentemente asimmetriche, e.g. tempi di reazione e accuratezza, η offre una misura dell’effetto meno distorta rispetto agli indici tradizionali. Questo studio indaga le proprietà...
Extensive evidence shows that adverse early-life conditions impact later functioning and increase vulnerability to psychopathology. Conversely, positive experiences, as living in enriched environments, often provide protective effects against later challenges.
A systematic review was conducted on PubMed and Scopus to unbiasedly assess how different early exposures - from neglect to enhanced...
The inclusion of negatively worded items in psychological scales often introduces wording effects—systematic response biases that distort factor structures and inflate dimensionality estimates, threatening structural validity. The random intercept item factor analysis (RIIFA) offers a promising strategy to isolate systematic variance due to item wording by incorporating a latent method factor...
Negli ultimi decenni la psicologia dei videogiochi ha visto un ricco proliferare di ricerche. Tuttavia, alcune tematiche risultano relativamente sotto-studiate. Per esempio, tipicamente la ricerca si interessa dei videogiochi d'azione, probabilmente a motivo della loro associazione con tematiche di interesse come gli effetti dei videogiochi violenti e le condotte di abuso. Ciò non rappresenta...
Studi precedenti hanno indagato l’elaborazione semantica di parole in parafovea attraverso l’utilizzo del paradigma Rapid Parallel Visual Presentation (RPVP) che prevede la presentazione simultanea di due parole, una in fovea (W1) ed una in parafovea (W2), controllate per lunghezza, frequenza d’uso [alta (AF) vs bassa (BF)] e relazione semantica [(no (nRS, 50%) vs si (RS, 50%)]. Nei lavori...
Feeling a touch is different from observing a touch. However, previous observations suggest shared neural representations between the two sensory modalities. To clarify this phenomenon, in this fMRI study, we employed inter-subject correlation (ISC) analysis, a measure of brain synchronization across individuals, between two groups of participants exposed either to a continuous passive tactile...
Alcuni studi sull’illusione di causalità – un bias cognitivo che porta le persone a inferire erroneamente una relazione causale tra eventi non correlati – hanno suggerito che specifiche manipolazioni indirette degli stimoli possano ridurre l’entità con la quale tale bias si manifesta. Tali manipolazioni includono, ad esempio, la disfluenza percettiva (Díaz-Lago & Matute, 2019a) e l’impiego di...
In questo studio abbiamo indagato la relazione tra frequenze spaziali e percezione emotiva impiegando il paradigma dei volti ibridi congiuntamente con il paradigma tachistoscopico. Volti felici, neutri, tristi e arrabbiati sono stati presentati a un gruppo di controllo e a una paziente con danno capsulo-talamico destro. Gli stimoli erano 1) volti emotivi non filtrati che sollecitano...
Differently from other measurement approaches, such as classical test theory and item response theory, the knowledge space theory (KST) framework has long lacked an overall index for measuring reliability. Recent literature has proposed the introduction of two indices, both grounded in an information-theoretic framework. In this research, we further investigate reliability in KST and introduce...
Introduction
The aim of this review is to explore the effectiveness of virtual reality-based sports training in improving perceptual-cognitive skills in athletes, providing an overview of the targeted functions and their measures, and proposing a categorisation within cognitive domains.
Methods
A comprehensive literature search was conducted across PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of...
The perceived body location arises from the integration of multisensory inputs. However, whether top-down factors can modulate body position perception beyond multisensory integration remains unclear. Here, we investigated whether verbal conditioning could change the perceived body location and whether this effect depends on the presence of visual information (i.e., visual exposure to a...
Objectives: Conversational artificial agents such as ChatGPT are commonly used by people seeking healthcare information. This study investigates whether ChatGPT exhibits distinct communicative behaviors in healthcare settings based on the nature of the disorder (medical or psychological) and the user's communication style (neutral vs. expressing concern).
Method: Queries were conducted with...
Introduction
Recent years have witnessed growing interest in the cognitive neuroscience of prior knowledge implementation in perceptual decision-making. Previous studies emphasized the role of posterior alpha rhythms in exploiting explicit priors, showing cue-related amplitude modulations. Yet, the oscillatory mechanisms underlying prior learning remain poorly understood. In this study, we...
The concept of meaning in life (MIL) is inherently complex, subjective, and thus challenging to measure, despite its core relevance in the promotion of individual well-being and flourishing. Self-measure tools based on verbal items (e.g., SMILE, Zambelli & Tagliabue, 2024) are traditionally used to measure self-perception of life meaningfulness, however, they face well-documented limitations,...
In this study, we analyzed the emotional and motivational aspects characterizing the profile of university students with Specific Learning Disorders (SLDs). We assessed 61 university students, 32 with SLD (age=23.6) and 29 in the control group (age=23.00). The results highlighted that individuals with SLDs exhibit higher levels of anxiety and depression and lower resilience compared to the...
Technological advances, particularly in e-health and telemedicine, have significantly influenced the evolution of healthcare services, especially after COVID-19. Telemedicine, according to the WHO, is defined as "the delivery of health services where distance is a critical factor, or would be using appropriate technologies, by all healthcare professionals using information and communication...
Introduction: Understanding speech in everyday life often requires adapting to unfamiliar speakers, a process known as perceptual adaptation. This adaptation is not effortless and likely draws on cognitive resources that are also needed for other aspects of language comprehension. Prominent models of language comprehension assume that listeners predict linguistic information at various levels...
Literature suggests that gifted children outperform non-gifted peers in information processing tasks (Duan et al., 2013). Also, research shows that facial emotion recognition accuracy is affected by expression intensity (Jenness et al., 2015; Montirosso et al., 2010), which can be depicted as different amounts of information available for the observer during emotion recognition. To test if an...
Introduzione.
I metodi partecipativi stanno trasformando la ricerca applicata, promuovendo una collaborazione attiva tra ricercatori e stakeholder, in particolare nei contesti di innovazione tecnologica orientata a soluzioni Human-Centered. Tuttavia, la dicotomia tra soggetti “esperti” e “non esperti” rimane ancora irrisolta, limitando il pieno potenziale inclusivo di tali pratiche (Crabu &...
Il presente studio si propone di esplorare la presenza di profili distinti in termini di Qualità di Vita (QoL), ansia, depressione, stress, sonno e fatica in un campione di pazienti ricoverati per COVID-19 presso l’Ospedale Molinette di Torino tra marzo 2020 e giugno 2022. Inoltre, la ricerca mira a identificare quali variabili cliniche al momento del ricovero (indicatori di gravità...
Lo studio indaga la relazione tra alcuni elementi strutturali basici di un’immagine (BSE) e il senso di rigeneratività (RIG) elicitata dalla visione di paesaggi naturali. L’Attention Restoration Theory (ART) postula che i paesaggi naturali possiedano caratteristiche che catturano automaticamente l’attenzione visiva, favorendo l’elaborazione dell’immagine e generando la percezione di RIG. Il...
Inherited Retinal Dystrophies (IRDs) are a group of genetically inherited disorders marked by the gradual degeneration of photoreceptors and leading to progressive vision loss. As retinal degeneration advances, compensatory changes may emerge across sensory, neural, motor, and psychological domains. The extent to which IRDs shape cortical responsiveness and the mechanisms underlying adaptive...
L’utilizzo di una lingua straniera (LS) riduce l’emotività e incrementa i processi deliberativi rispetto alla lingua nativa (LN), favorendo decisioni e valutazioni meno influenziate da bias cognitivi (Foreign Language Effect, FLE, Keysar et al, 2012). La ricerca indaga se la LS riduce stereotipi impliciti di genere nel mercato del lavoro (gender-career bias).
Tre esperimenti sono stati...
As digital ecosystems become increasingly interconnected, cyber-risk assessment is no longer solely a technical matter. It now encompasses human factors, social dynamics, and individual perceptions that shape user behaviour and influence decision-making in the context of cyber social security. The diffusion of cyber-physical systems has intensified human–digital interactions, exposing users to...
The Social Baseline Theory (SBT) suggests that dealing with an uncertain and threatening environment in isolation comes with higher cost than doing so with social support, as the human brain and body evolved to operate optimally in a social environment. SBT identifies two mechanisms, load sharing and risk distribution, suggesting that when a threat arises in the environment, the load as well...
Gli antipsicotici rappresentano il trattamento d’elezione per i disturbi dello spettro schizofrenico. Tuttavia, essi risultano associati ad importanti effetti collaterali tra cui l’aumento di peso, che determina ripercussioni fisiologiche e psicologiche notevoli sulla vita dei pazienti. Questo studio ha l’obiettivo di esplorare l’aumento di peso indotto da antipsicotici secondo una prospettiva...
More and more children with dyslexia progress in their school curriculum to college, raising interest in examining the characteristics of reading disorders in adulthood. In the present study, we investigated the reading abilities of Italian college students with dyslexia, examining vocal reaction times (RTs) in reading single words. We presented the entire set of words from the Varless...
Il costrutto di Intelligenza Emotiva è dibattuto e controverso a partire dalla sua definizione e diversi studi indagano in maniera critica la multidimensionalità che ha portato a soluzioni fattoriali diverse (tre o quattro fattori). In letteratura, inoltre, limitati sono gli studi sugli adulti nel contesto nazionale. Il presente studio indaga la struttura fattoriale e le proprietà...
When planning an experiment, the number of participants is typically based on the desired statistical power or precision. For intrinsically noisy measures such as reaction times, neural or physiological indexes, the number of trials per participant can also be increased to enhance statistical power. However, the actual benefit of adding more trials has not been systematically evaluated. Longer...
Contesto: Le esperienze trasformative (ET) possono essere descritte come esperienze brevi, percepite come straordinarie ed eccezionali, che contribuiscono a cambiamenti nella percezione di sé e degli altri, così come nell’identità personale, grazie alla loro capacità di ampliare le proprie conoscenze e intensificare la complessità emotiva. Tali esperienze possono manifestarsi come intuizioni...
Introduction: The dot-probe task assesses attentional bias toward emotional stimuli, though dot-locked dynamics, a marker of attentional engagement, remain underexplored. By combining behavioral (reaction times, RTs) and event-related potential (ERP) measures, we examined whether attentional engagement in healthy participants changed over the course of the task as a function of emotional...
When people encounter a new stimulus, they may draw on their knowledge of similar stimuli to make inferences. This mechanism is captured by the Shared Features Principles (SFP, https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000777). However, while SFP facilitates attribute transfer between stimuli, it does not inherently predict behavior. This research integrates SFP with the Goal-Directed Perspective (GDP),...
La percezione ritmica è importante sia nella musica che nel linguaggio, e i bambini con disturbi del neurosviluppo mostrano pattern ritmici atipici. Tuttavia, gli strumenti esistenti per valutare le abilità ritmiche sono spesso pensati per adulti, rendendo necessario sviluppare test più adatti ai bambini. Abbiamo ideato una versione per bambini del Beat Alignment Test (BAT), test di...
In recent years, there has been growing interest in mind-body interventions, such as yoga, in the field of psychology. While existing research suggests that yoga provides mental health benefits, studies specifically targeting healthy young adults (aged 18-30 years) remain scarce. This systematic review aims to assess the impact of yoga on cognitive functioning (e.g. attention, executive...
ABSTRACT
Recent research has indicated higher levels of morally relevant personality traits—psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism (collectively known as the Dark Triad)—among non-heterosexual individuals. However, little is known about how sexual orientation may influence moral reasoning. In this study, we examined moral reasoning using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ-30) in...
The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is widely used to screen for cognitive impairment and is considered a reliable tool for detecting cognitive decline in Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, being a pen-and-paper test, the MoCA can be time-consuming, cognitively taxing, and stressful for patients, raising concerns about its ecological validity. To address these limitations, eye-tracking...
Long-term visual memory refers to the ability to store and retrieve visual information over extended periods. However, episodic representations may share conceptual similarities, leading to retrieval interference, particularly when multiple distinct episodes must be maintained in memory. Recent work has introduced an index of cumulative conceptual interference, combining capacity demands and...
Introduzione. La validità di contenuto rappresenta un elemento cruciale nello sviluppo dei test psicometrici. Con l'avvento dei Large Language Models (LLMs), è oggi possibile analizzare la coerenza semantica degli item in maniera preliminare, senza la necessità di raccogliere dati empirici da campioni di rispondenti. Metodo. Utilizzando gli embedding testuali generati dagli LLMs, analizziamo...
Fibromyalgia (FM) is characterized by chronic widespread pain with muscoloskeletal stiffness and tenderness.
FM patients were investigated with skin biopsy for Small Fiber Neuropathy SFN: Grayston’s metanalysis 2018 concerning 8 studies about FM pooled prevalance of Small Fiber Neuropathy (SFN) (49%).
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) is characterized by a variety of no specific...
Forgetting is a fundamental aspect of memory, yet the cognitive mechanisms underlying the degradation of complex episodic representations remain a matter of debate. While traditional models characterize forgetting as a linear decline in recall over time, emerging evidence suggests a more nuanced process influenced by attentional dynamics. This study examined how attention during encoding and...
Introduction: Network analysis (NA) is increasingly being used in clinical psychology to represent psychopathological processes as complex systems of interacting symptoms. Fully Idiographic Network Analysis (FINA) estimates individual level symptom networks through intensive data collection. This study evaluated FINA’s clinical validity and utility in 15 clinician-patient dyads....
The role of neuropsychology in dementia diagnosis remains a topic of ongoing debate. The advent of disease-modifying therapies for Alzheimer’s disease amplifies the demand for accurate early diagnosis. Biomarker-driven frameworks currently dominate, favoring biological indicators over clinical evaluation. Yet biomarker positivity alone offers limited predictive value for disease onset and...
Introduction: Aging is a process characterized by a progressive physiological degeneration in global functioning, including the decline of cognitive functions and sensory processes. Previous studies from our Labs report that deficits in chemical senses such as smell and taste can predict the onset of cognitive and neurodegenerative diseases, highlighting a link between olfactory, gustatory and...
Introduction. The global increase in life expectancy has led to a steady growth in the elderly population. Psychological well-being has been identified as a key factor in promoting healthy aging, as it contributes to the prevention of chronic diseases and supports longevity. Consequently, scientific research has increasingly focused on identifying protective factors that enhance...
Evidenze recenti mostrano che la capacità di formare una rappresentazione spaziale mentale utile per orientarsi nell’ambiente è influenzata dalle emozioni, in particolare quelle positive, che sembrano migliorare la memoria spaziale. Dall’altro lato, le teorie della psicologia ambientale suggeriscono che gli ambienti naturali favoriscono il benessere e le capacità cognitive. Tra questi, la...
In sleep disorders characterized by alterations in REM sleep, such as REM sleep behavioral disorder (RBD), also the quality of slow-wave sleep (SWS) is often affected. However, no direct causal relationship between REM sleep disruption and SWS impairment has been demonstrated.
In the current study, we examined the effects of experimental REM sleep fragmentation through vibrotactile...
In recent years, motor variability has been recognized as a promising factor in studying behavioral gestures. Previous studies have explored this construct separately for each motor district, implicitly assuming that most of the variability is effector-dependent. Here, we tried to challenge this implicit assumption by proposing a study design that involves a combined within-subject...
Il bias additivo è una tendenza automatica che porta a preferire soluzioni basate sull’aggiunta piuttosto che sulla sottrazione, anche quando queste ultime risultano più funzionali (Adams et al., 2021). Sebbene l’aggiunta appaia cognitivamente più accessibile, studi sull’immaginazione visiva hanno mostrato che, in condizioni di controllo cognitivo esplicito, le operazioni sottrattive risultano...
This presentation explores the dynamic interplay between environmental influence, neurocognitive development, and personality organization as a central mechanism in the emergence of psychopathology during pre-adolescence and adolescence. Grounded in contemporary research in developmental neuroscience and epigenetics, we propose that environmental input – ranging from caregiving and...
Art has long been associated with promoting well-being, yet the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Several studies suggest that engaging with art can enhance well-being, even when the artworks express cruel or emotionally intense content. In this study, we aimed to investigate how the implicit processing of art, conveying positive, neutral, or negative emotions, influences subsequent...
La flessibilità psicologica è un costrutto centrale per la salute mentale e l’adattamento nei contesti accademici complessi. Una sua compromissione può associarsi a condotte disfunzionali, come comportamenti a rischio legati a dipendenze e tendenze a mentire o omettere informazioni relative al proprio percorso universitario.
Questo studio ha esplorato le relazioni tra flessibilità...
Frailty in older people is a multisystem physiological state associated with poor clinical and functional outcomes (1; 2). This condition may be associated with cognitive decline due to impairment of brain processes and structures, particularly in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) (3). There is currently a dearth of study on cognitive function and brain activity in frailty, despite the high...
It is well known that not only memory declines but also executive functions (EFs) undergo significant changes during the ageing process.
The aim of this study was to identify neuropsychological differences, particularly in EFs, between cognitively healthy older adults (HA), individuals with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
A...
Temporal summation of second pain (TSSP) is a progressive increase of pain sensation during constant thermal stimulation intensity. Triggered by low-frequency repetitive stimulation of unmyelinated C-nociceptors, such phenomenon has clinical relevance as it reflects central sensitization mechanisms which appear to be abnormal in chronic pain conditions. Lately, ‘affective touch ’ (AT) has been...
INTRODUZIONE: Diversi fattori neurali e cognitivi sono implicati nella presa di decisione sociale così come misurata attraverso il Mini-Ultimatum Game (Mini-UG; Falk et al., 2003), tra cui l’attivazione della giunzione temporo-parietale destra (rTPJ) e processi di mentalizzazione (Güroğlu et al., 2010). Questo studio approfondisce il contributo causale della rTPJ nel ruolo di rispondente nel...
Il ritmo è un elemento centrale della musica che suscita piacere, anche grazie al suo legame con i processi sensori-motori. Il groove, ovvero il piacere di muoversi a tempo con la musica, è un’esperienza universale che raggiunge il picco con ritmi di complessità media, bilanciando prevedibilità e sorpresa. Tuttavia, il ruolo di caratteristiche esecutive come tempo, dinamica e articolazione nel...
Le funzioni esecutive (FE), come la flessibilità cognitiva, la memoria di lavoro e l’inibizione, sono capacità cognitive di ordine superiore che consentono di regolare il comportamento e raggiungere obiettivi. Esse sono particolarmente rilevanti nel contesto dell’apprendimento ed esercitano un ruolo determinante sulle performance accademiche (PA). È noto che la riserva cognitiva (RC) moduli il...
In transparent orthographies like Italian, children acquire phonological decoding skills rapidly due to consistent grapheme–phoneme correspondences. However, fluent literacy also relies on the internalisation of abstract orthographic patterns that are not explicitly taught.
This study investigated whether Italian-speaking children implicitly acquire orthographic regularities—specifically...
Le tecniche di self-compassion rappresentano un approccio promettente per la promozione del benessere psicologico, in particolare nei contesti digitali, che ne facilitano l’accessibilità e l’autonomia d’uso. Il presente studio, attualmente in corso (n = 50 partecipanti), si propone di valutare l’efficacia di una breve tecnica narrativa di self-compassion, fruibile online in modalità...
The sense of ownership over a virtual body in virtual reality (VR) depends on several factors, including the perceived similarity between the avatar and the user. However, one aspect that has received little attention is the specific role of the avatar’s body size. This pilot study investigated whether embodying an avatar with a different body size from one's perceived body affects ownership,...
La capacità di interagire con gli strumenti rappresenta una delle espressioni più emblematiche dell’intelligenza umana, poiché riflette l’integrazione di conoscenze percettive, semantiche e sensorimotorie. Nel presente studio di eye-tracking abbiamo indagato in che modo la familiarità degli oggetti modula le dinamiche temporali dell’esplorazione visiva in un compito di free-viewing....
Exposure to natural environments supports well-being by reducing psychological and physiological stress, as suggested by the Stress Recovery Theory. However, most studies have focused on the stress-relieving effects of green landscapes and elements, with limited investigation of broader biodiversity or dynamic representations of nature.
This study tested whether digital exposure to nature –...
Reading, like other complex abilities, can change with age and older adults may experience fatigue and rely more on contextual cues for compensation. Reduced visual acuity and increased crowding likely narrow the visual span, which in turn could affect semantic processing in the parafovea and slow down reading.
We investigated these age-related differences by examining parafoveal-on-foveal...
Achieving precise synchronization between neural, visual, and motor signals is crucial for investigating event-related potentials (ERPs) in sensorimotor paradigms. We developed a high-precision acquisition system integrating 256-channel high-density electroencephalography (hd-EEG), OptiTrack motion capture, and a custom photodiode-based triggering setup to study ERPs during a visually guided...
Building on restorative theories (Stress Reduction Theory and Attention Restoration Theory), we investigated whether exposure to digital restorative natural environments influences recovery from anaerobic exercise, focusing on the association between physiological stress markers and self-reported psychological restoration.
Italian and Spanish participants (N=35) performed a Wingate anaerobic...
In Italy, there is a growing need for scientifically validated tools capable of investigating the complex relationship between citizens and public spaces. Such instruments can provide public institutions with valuable approaches and strategies into how valorization processes of places and accessibility to them can impact individual well-being, social cohesion, and community identity.
This...
Individuals are increasingly required to navigate complex decisions that may involve risk taking which arise from a dynamic interplay between risk perception, risk attitude, situational variables, and individual traits. Affective responses play a central role in shaping how people perceive and respond to risk, in conjunction with more deliberate cognitive evaluations. Research in this area...
Animals learn about the statistical regularities of their environment by a process of implicit learning, a power- ful mechanism that may operate by mere exposure.1 Implicit learning supports processes such as speech acquisition but also learning about the spatial and temporal structure of the world more generally, which is essential for effective interaction.2 Here, we used a frequency-tagging...
Introduzione
Il presente lavoro ha l’obiettivo di confrontare il reaching e grasping nella realtà fisica (RF) vs.mista (RM). La scarsa letteratura circoscrive il confronto ad ambienti di realtà virtuale (RV), in assenza di feedback aptico. La nostra condizione RM prevede invece che l’input visivo sia fornito in RV, ma l’azione venga eseguita nell’ambiente fisico. L’ulteriore novità consiste...
Recent studies have shown that observed kinematic information drives action understanding, even in the presence of misleading contextual priors. Moreover, at the perceptual level, prior beliefs about observed actions’ goal has a top-down influence on perception, biasing it in the direction of predicted future course. This results in a perceptual shift known as Representational Momentum (RM)....
Introduction. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to enhance social skills (Luberto et al., 2017; Trautwein et al., 2013), as compassion (Gilbert, 2020; Sinclair, 2021). Together, these practices are hypothesized to influence self–other representation: mindfulness reduces self-centeredness, while compassion increases connection with others (Trautwein et al., 2013). This study examines...
I volti infantili rivestono un ruolo cruciale nel parenting, attirando l'attenzione degli adulti e attivando risposte esplicite e implicite che regolano il comportamento di cura. Tuttavia, pochi studi hanno indagato se volti con diversa valenza siano elaborati similmente e se tali risposte siano associate a comportamenti di cura reali. Questo studio ha esaminato la relazione tra risposte...
Introduction. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends updated COVID-19 vaccines for the 2024-2025 season, highlighting the importance of vaccination to protect against severe illness and hospitalization. However, vaccine hesitancy remains a significant challenge, impacting the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns and contributing to ongoing infections and...
The SNARC (Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes) effect describes the tendency to associate small numbers with the left side and large numbers with the right. Similarly, stimulus valence (positive/negative) is spatially lateralized, with right-handers typically associating negative stimuli with the left and positive with the right. In the present study, we investigated how these...
The Cognitive Function Instrument (CFI) is a self-report and partner-report questionnaire designed to quantify subjectively perceived cognitive difficulties in older adults. The aim of this study is to investigate whether it is possible to determine a cut-off score that can distinguish individuals with and without subjective cognitive decline (SCD).
Thirty subjects (14 females; age = 71.8 ±...
The role of selective attention in sensory memory and its implications for theories of visual consciousness have been widely explored using retro-cue paradigms. A retro-cue is typically presented after the stimulus array has disappeared, guiding internal attention to a memory representation that is no longer visually available. Studies on retro-cues consistently show that cued items are better...
Recent longitudinal studies emphasise the importance of early indicators of cognitive decline, such as subjective cognitive decline (SCD), which is associated with a higher risk of cognitive impairment. Our aim was to investigate the cognitive and behavioural changes in individuals with SCD over time.
18 individuals with SCD (both women and men) aged 60 years and older were recruited from the...
Studies on sensorimotor synchronization (SMS) have shown that the variability (CoV) of both asynchronies and inter-tapping-intervals (ITIs) decreases as the mean ITI (and Inter Onset Interval, IOI) decreases (Repp, 2005). Such relationship is particularly evident in self-paced tapping tasks. The literature also shows that SMS not only facilitates an accurate timing of motor responses, but also...
Introduction: Future-oriented cognition involves several neurocognitive processes supported by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and beta-band oscillations. This study aimed to investigate the causal role of beta oscillations in the DLPFC during three future-related tasks: Mental Time Travel (MTT), Delay Discounting (DD), and Time-Based Prospective Memory (PM).
Methods: Thirty-four...
Introduction
Although the role of language in action learning has always been overlooked, considering the evidence on the role of inner speech (IS) in driving several cognitive processes, we speculate that it plays a role in action learning as well. We used articulatory suppression to impair participants’ IS access by disrupting the phonological loop, hypothesizing that IS inaccessibility...
INTRODUZIONE: Diversi studi dimostrano che l’ascolto di musica a bassa intensità riduce la frequenza cardiaca (Halbert et al., 2018). Verranno presentati due studi che indagano la possibilità di modulare la frequenza cardiaca e l’ansia attraverso l’ascolto di un battito cardiaco preregistrato. METODO: Esperimento1: Ventiquattro giovani adulti sani hanno completato lo State-Trait Anxiety...
Introduction: The Mental Time Line model suggests that temporal intervals are represented along a left-to-right oriented line. Patients with right brain damage, especially those with neglect (N+), underestimate time durations. This distortion can be reduced by manipulating visuospatial attention, such as through Prismatic Adaptation. Also, a link between the motor system and time...
INTRODUZIONE: Il presente studio indaga la modulazione dell’effetto di compatibilità spaziale manico-risposta (i.e., affordance effect) in funzione dello stato d'uso di un oggetto (attivo: in uso; passivo: non in uso) e della sua pericolosità (pericoloso; sicuro).
METODO: Sono state utilizzate maniglie “sicure” (maniglie di uso quotidiano) e “pericolose” (i.e., filo spinato avvolto intorno...
Ansia, depressione e stress sono condizioni psicopatologiche frequenti nella popolazione anziana, ma spesso sottodiagnosticate a causa di presentazioni atipiche e di comorbidità con condizioni mediche e declino cognitivo-funzionale. L’identificazione accurata di tali condizioni richiede strumenti validi, attendibili e adeguati a età e contesto culturale del campione. Il Depression Anxiety...
Il benessere psicologico degli studenti universitari è un indicatore chiave per la qualità dell’esperienza accademica e per la prevenzione del disagio psichico. Tra i fattori coinvolti, la regolazione emotiva si configura come un meccanismo cruciale, spesso associato a livelli di disagio psicologico e a un peggior rendimento accademico.
Questo studio trasversale ha esplorato la relazione tra...
This study consists of two components: a systematic review and a protocol validation. The first part aims to synthesize existing evidence on how workload, stress, fatigue, and sleepiness affect speech, with a focus on identifying vocal markers of these states in aviation contexts. Following PRISMA guidelines, a comprehensive search was conducted across Scopus, ScienceDirect, PsycINFO, and Web...
Introduction. Observing people perform actions activates a network of fronto-temporo-parietal brain regions known as the Action Observation Network (AON). Prior research suggests this network can engage specialized pathways depending on action features, though their temporal dynamics remain unclear.
Methods. We conducted two experiments with 50 healthy participants using an action...
Negli ultimi anni, salute e benessere sono diventati temi centrali nella ricerca psicologica, con crescente attenzione agli indicatori soggettivi. La salute percepita e il benessere soggettivo rappresentano due costrutti interconnessi, sebbene la forza di questa relazione possa variare in base all’appartenenza generazionale e alle variabili sociodemografiche. Il presente studio si propone di...
Network modelling is quickly gaining ground as a promising approach to understanding psychological phenomena. A 2018 review identified approximately 400 papers on network modelling in psychology, and a 2023 review found nearly 1,400 papers on cross-sectional designs alone, illustrating the field’s rapid growth. While network models have become particularly influential in psychopathology, they...
Il processo di invecchiamento è accompagnato da un progressivo declino delle capacità cognitive e fisiche, in particolare di quelle spaziali, fondamentali per il mantenimento dell’autonomia nella vita quotidiana. Sebbene i training combinati – cognitivi e fisici– abbiano mostrato effetti significativi nel migliorare e/o mantenere le capacità funzionali delle persone anziane, la loro efficacia...
Background
Long-duration space missions and future settlements on the Moon or Mars raise concerns about how the unique environmental and social conditions of long-term isolation and confinement affect human cognition. Crewmembers in these environments operate under high levels of autonomy, making effective decision-making critical for managing high-stakes situations. However, empirical...
L’aumento dell’aspettativa di vita, seppur si configuri come una conquista della società contemporanea, impone oggi una revisione profonda dei sistemi sanitari e sociali. In questa prospettiva, l’invecchiamento attivo si configura come paradigma essenziale per promuovere la salute nella terza età, coniugando motivazione, capacità e opportunità di vita quotidiana. Con questo simposio proponiamo...
Chair(s): Giulia Marselli e Daniele Gatti
Human memory is a complex cognitive function that ranges from basic abilities to high-level processes. In this symposium, we aim to explore the study of human memory from multiple perspectives, bringing together evidence from various subfields. The five talks will cover a wide range of topics, with the specific goal of showcasing the diversity and...
Introduzione: Il pensiero ripetitivo negativo (repetitive negative thinking, RNT) è uno stile di pensiero disfunzionale caratterizzato da pensieri negativi ricorrenti, percepiti come automatici e difficili da controllare. È considerato un processo transdiagnostico, ovvero implicato nello sviluppo e nel mantenimento di diversi disturbi psicopatologici. Esempi tipici sono la ruminazione e il...
Over the past few decades, neuropsychological assessment has undergone significant evolution. Traditionally based on paper-and-pencil tests administered by clinicians, the field is now embracing digital formats offering enhanced standardization, replicability, and objectivity. It is widely acknowledged that administration procedures can influence patient performance, affecting both clinical...
Motivated by the need to support crews on future long-duration space missions, psychological research on extreme environments has significantly increased over the last decade, examining how prolonged isolation affects health, well-being, cognition, and emotion. However, the broader effects on psychological adaptation processes remain unclear.
This symposium presents a multidisciplinary set of...
Negli ultimi quindici anni l'interesse per un approccio transdiagnostico alla salute mentale è cresciuto significativamente. Questo modello si basa sull'idea di studiare, diagnosticare e intervenire sui disturbi mentali concentrandosi sui processi neurobiologici e psicologici condivisi tra diverse condizioni psicopatologiche, piuttosto che su singole categorie diagnostiche. Il modello...
The need for updated and openly available normative data represents a crucial challenge in contemporary neuropsychological assessment. Traditional paper-and-pencil tests remain widely used in clinical practice, yet many still rely on outdated norms, often inaccessible due to commercial restrictions. These limitations affect diagnostic accuracy, undermine clinical autonomy, and compromise the...
Transitional events are significant life experiences that organize autobiographical memory by introducing substantial psychological and material changes to individuals' everyday lives. The amount of change associated with transitional events is measured by the Transitional Impact Scale (TIS). In this study, we employed an adapted version of the TIS for both past and anticipated future...
L'invecchiamento attivo richiede strategie innovative per promuovere il benessere psicologico e cognitivo in una popolazione anziana sempre più numerosa e diversificata. Crescenti evidenze suggeriscono che l’esposizione a contesti naturali o culturalmente rilevanti, anche in formato virtuale (Richesin et al., 2021; Van Houwelingen-Snippe et al., 2021), possa favorire miglioramenti...
The development of new neuropsychological tools reflects the need to update traditional assessment methods by incorporating screening of sensory requirements, consistent computer-based procedures and open access practices. These advancements are examined through the Italian standardization and validation of a new task designed to measure phonological working memory abilities, which play a...
Studies in isolated, confined and extreme (ICE) environments demonstrated that stressors, analogous to those present during spaceflight, induce detrimental effects on human well-being. However, several ground-based models do not replicate the ever changing environmental conditions astronauts will face in deep-space missions, which are similar to the ones experienced by maritime explorers of...
Introduction:
Despite advances in imaging and lesion studies, the neural underpinnings of metacognition, i.e., the ability to evaluate and regulate one’s own cognitive processes, remain poorly understood. Given its involvement in reward processing, error detection, and self-monitoring, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) has been proposed as a potential substrate for metacognitive processing....
Autobiographical memory can be distorted, supporting the maintenance of a positive self-image (e.g., self-enhancement concept; Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). In this line, preliminary evidence has shown that memories of immoral actions can be characterized by distortions (e.g., less details or being blurry) and elicit a so-called “immoral amnesia” that may also be one of the underlying...
Prosopagnosia is a condition characterized by difficulties in face recognition, in the absence of agnosia and memory impairments. So far, no normative data are available for the Italian population allowing its comprehensive assessment. This work aims to standardize and provide normative data, reliability and validity of a prosopagnosia battery.
The latter was developed considering other...
L’invecchiamento della popolazione impone una ridefinizione delle strategie di prevenzione e promozione della salute. La solitudine è riconosciuta come un acceleratore della vulnerabilità neurocognitiva e della fragilità fisica, sottolineando l’urgenza di interventi preventivi (Livingston et al., 2020; Donovan & Blazer, 2020; Cacioppo & Cacioppo, 2018).
Adottando una prospettiva...
Purpose.The Arctic environment is characterized by extreme stressors which can impair soldiers' cognitive and physical performance, particularly during military operations. This study sought to examine the effects of operating in ICE on cognitive and physical fatigue in alpine soldiers.
Methods.36 Alpine Corps soldiers underwent testing before, during, and after a three-days...
Il delay discounting (DD), ossia la tendenza a svalutare una ricompensa in funzione del ritardo nella sua fruizione, riveste un ruolo chiave non solo nelle decisioni economiche, ma è anche alterato in diverse patologie psichiatriche, tra cui disturbi da uso di sostanze, depressione maggiore e disturbo ossessivo-compulsivo. Tale natura transdiagnostica rende il DD un candidato ideale per lo...
The Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm has always been a reliable and versatile tool to investigate the phenomenon of false memories in a laboratory setting.
Originally structured using linguistic stimuli, in this paradigm participants are generally asked to memorize a series of lists of words and then to recognize them among newly presented items. False recognitions frequently occur in...
Introduction. Digital cognitive tools offer promising opportunities for first-level assessment of cognitive abilities, especially in primary care. This study had two aims: (1) to systematically review touchscreen-based tools validated for cognitive assessment in older adults in primary care; and (2) to present normative data for the Italian version of the Self-Administered Tasks Uncovering...
L’invecchiamento della popolazione rappresenta una delle sfide più complesse per le società moderna, con profonde implicazioni per la pianificazione e l’erogazione dei servizi sanitari e sociali. In questo contesto, la diagnosi precoce dei Disturbi Neurocognitivi (NCD), come il Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), è diventata una priorità per contenere l’impatto della neurodegenerazione e...
Clarifying the cognitive effects of microgravity is essential for ensuring optimal human performance during future long-duration space and interplanetary missions. Given the limited opportunities for spaceflights, the high cost, and the long-time intervals between launches, terrestrial analogs such as parabolic flight (PF) offer a valuable alternative for controlled experiments.
During four...
Introduzione: La combinazione di interventi cognitivi o comportamentali con la stimolazione cerebrale ha mostrato risultati promettenti, sebbene preliminari. In questo progetto abbiamo combinato la terapia metacognitiva (MCT), un approccio psicoterapeutico cognitivo-comportamentale di terza generazione, con la stimolazione transcranica a corrente continua (tDCS) in due campioni...
Semantic knowledge plays an active role in many well-known false memory phenomena, including those emerging from the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) task. In this experimental paradigm, indeed, humans tend to falsely recognize newly presented words via activation of other previously shown stimuli. In the present study we aimed to test what happens in cases in which no apparent prior semantic...
Neurodegenerative diseases represent one of the most significant challenges of healthcare systems, with implications for patients, caregivers, and society. Nowadays there are no definitive cures available, and early symptom recognition is essential to enable timely intervention and slow disease progression. However, traditional diagnostic methods are often complex, time and resource intensive,...
Adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds often face greater challenges in maintaining psychological well-being at school. Within the school context, academic self-efficacy (ASE), defined as students’ belief in their ability to manage learning tasks, has been shown to foster adaptive emotional functioning, promoting positive emotions and protecting against negative ones. However, the extent...
