Enrico Toffalini

I am a cognitive psychologist, and I got my PhD in Psychological Sciences at the University of Padua under the supervision of prof. Cornoldi. My main research interests include, in a more or less anti-chronological order: structure and profiles of intelligence, cognitive bases of neurodevelopmental disorders (in a dimensional perspective), gender differences in cognitive abilities, spatial cognition in typical and atypical development, false memories for emotional events. I am curious about everything related to individual differences in cognitive functioning: I would like to bring them all into a single model of intelligence, but in the future, I would also like to investigate the complexity from which they originate. I conduct my research with a combination of original empirical studies, analyses on large archival databases, and meta-analyses. Over time I have pursued them with collaborations with foreign universities (Oslo, Cambridge, Liverpool, City University London), with several Italian universities, and with my research group "Memory and Learning" here in Padua.
Over the years I became aware of the many biases and artifacts that plague research in psychology and thus became interested in "meta-research" issues, especially in collaboration with the Padua interdisciplinary group "Psicostat." Wrong methods and assumptions lead to wrong conclusions. The good news is that most of them can be prevented. Interests on this side include, for now: design and power analysis in psychology, evaluation of treatment effectiveness, latent profile/clustering analysis, response time, longitudinal data. In general, I like to talk about problems.
When I was younger, I loved reading classic fiction books, watching films, running, biking. Things I still do in the few scraps of time, along with hoeing the garden (for food), doing some powerlifting (don't laugh: it's good for the body and mindset), listening to Barbero's podcasts, and some other related cultural interests. Let's face it: academic work leaves little time for anything else and it's stressful… but it's also the most wonderful job in the world.