Welcome to the Perception group at the University of Padova (PercUP). The group brings together many researchers, and it is formally part of the Department of General Psychology, although collaborations extend to other departments and internationally.

We investigate perception and its many cognitive and neural mechanisms including their interaction with other psychological functions. We use psychophysical methods as well as ethological methods, and non-invasive brain stimulation techniques, electrophysiological recording, eye tracking, modelling, and neural networks. Our interests span from vision to hearing, from smell to time perception, from crossmodal to risk perception.

It is important to study perception because it is part of everybody's everyday experience. Perception is the way we interact with the world around us all the time, and because of this it would be easy (but wrong) to take it for granted.

Our city is a very special place. Padova is famous not only for its University, we are also surrounded by Art. Its history is relevant for the study of perception, for instance because of the important changes in the representation of space and perspective that came about during the Renaissance. 

Andrea Mantegna. Archers Shooting at Saint Christopher (1451-5) detail. Fresco, Ovetari Chapel, Eremitani Church, Padua. According to Kubovy (1988), Mantegna's arrow in the eye scene is a metaphor for the art of perspective.