Time perception

Even though time is embedded in many aspects of our life, it remains one of the most elusive problems in psychological research. We cannot approach time as other dimensions like sight, sound or touch, as there are no specific “temporal stimuli” or specific receptors dedicated to temporal processing. Nevertheless, we have some sense of time and certainly some representation of it, and we can efficiently meet the temporal requirements of activities like walking, talking, and playing music. What is even more extraordinary about time is that, unlike other senses, time does not have a specific brain area as other senses do; temporal processing rather relies on the contribution of different brain areas and networks.
Ongoing projects
New students and collaborations are always welcome!
We are currently working on different research lines:

• Effect of emotion on time processing
• Applying non-invasive brain stimulation techniques in the study of time processing
• Temporal dysfunctions in clinical populations

  Memory

Ongoing projects
New students and collaborations are always welcome!
We are currently working on different research lines:
Assessment and treatment of executive functions: the virtual kitchen
A virtual environment uses artificial stimuli that can effectively replace real ones and it can be a valuable tool for the assessment and rehabilitation of executive functions. Executive functions are strongly involved in daily life and therefore the possibility to simulate some real complex activities is appealing. The aim is to develop a virtual environment and a virtual task to assess complex planning, action monitoring and prospective memory. Patients of different aetiologies (i.e., traumatic brain injury, stroke) will be asked to tidy up a virtual kitchen and prepare lunch in it. Preliminary evidence suggests that the virtual kitchen task can be an ecologically valid method for the assessment of executive functions and that it may be especially useful when such assessment is related to being discharged from hospital or to returning to work.

Assessment and cognitive enhancement in older people 
The field of healthy and active aging is a rapidly growing research filed. We are interested on promoting successful cognitive aging. The main line of research is related to the study of the effects of computerized attentional cognitive training and its effects on the general cognitive performance and everyday functioning of older adults.

The Italian validation of the Addenbrook's Cognitive Examination III 
Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination III (ACE-III) is a brief cognitive screening tool to assess five cognitive domains: attention/orientation, verbal fluency, memory, language, and visuospatial abilities. ACE-III has recently been developed and validated in English, Egyptian–Arabic, Spanish, and Chinese. The main research line is to validate the Italian version of ACE-III. We are actually involved in studying the sensitivity and sensibility of the test in detecting mild cognitive impartments.

Assessment and treatment of prospective memory
Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to carry out planned action in the future. Depending on the type of cue that triggers the PM action we can distinguish between time-based and event-based PM actions. 

• To investigate the cognitive and temporal abilities involved in time-based PM. These studies will been conducted with healthy older adults and TBI patients. 
• PM abilities (both event and time-based) in older adults to understand the causes and degree of PM dysfunctions and to develop new enhancement programs.
• PM abilities (both event and time-based) in TBI and PD patients to understand the causes and degree of PM dysfunctions and to develop new rehabilitation programs.