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Department of Psychology "Renzo Canestrari"

MEMORY

We study the cognitive and neural mechanisms of episodic memory and other forms of mental event construction, such as future thinking and mind-wandering, as well as the mental representation of subjective time. Head: Elisa Ciaramelli

Areas: Cognitive neuroscience

Research lines of the group documented by publications in the period 2020-2024

We study the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying memory systems, with particular interest in episodic memory, event construction, and mental time travel. We are interested in how individuals remember past events or construct novel events, for example during mind-wandering, and in the dynamics of memory retrieval and its relation with attentional mechanisms. We use behavioral, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging methods.

Head

Elisa Ciaramelli, PhD Associate Professor

Members

Davide Braghittoni

Adjunct professor

Michela Candini

Adjunct professor

Research fellow

Elisa Ciaramelli

Full Professor

Silvia Gambino

Adjunct professor

Angelo Pisani

PhD Student

Debora Stendardi

Research fellow

ERC Sectors

SH4 The Human Mind and Its Complexity: Cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, education

  • SH4_3 Neuropsychology
  • SH4_4 Cognitive and experimental psychology: perception, action, and higher cognitive processes

LS5 Neurosciences and Neural Disorders: Neurobiology, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neurochemistry, neuropharmacology, neuroimaging, systems neuroscience, neurological and psychiatric disorders

  • LS5_7 Cognition (e.g. learning, memory, emotions, speech)
  • LS5_12 Psychiatric disorders (e.g. schizophrenia, autism, Tourette’s syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder)

Scientific Disciplinary Sector: M-PSI/02

Selected publications of the group for the period 2020-2024

  1. Stendardi, D., Basu, A., Treves, A., & Ciaramelli, E. (2023). Déjà vu: A botched memory operation, illegitimate to start with. The Behavioral and brain sciences, 46, e378. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x2300016x
  2. Rosenbaum, R.S., Halilova, J.G., Kwan, D., Beneventi, S., Craver, C.F., Gilboa, A., Ciaramelli, E. (2023). Temporal construal is independent of episodic future thought. Psychological Science, 34, 75-86. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976221120001
  3. Viol, A., Treves, A., Ciaramelli, E. (2021). Navigating through the ebbs and flows of language. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 70, 130-36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2021.10.009
  4. Ciaramelli, E., De Luca, F., Kwan, D., Mok, J., Bianconi, F., Knyagnytska, V., Craver, C., Green, L., Myerson, J., Rosenbaum, R.S (2021). The role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex in reward valuation and future thinking during intertemporal choice. eLife, 10, e67387.https://doi.org/10.7554%2FeLife.67387
  5. Stendardi, D., Biscotto, F, Bertossi, E., Ciaramelli, E (2021). Future and present self in memory: the role of vmPFC in the self-reference effect. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 16, 1205-13. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsab071
  6. Ciaramelli, E., Anelli, F., Frassinetti, F. (2021). An asymmetry between past and future mental time travel following vmPFC damage. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 16, 315-325. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaa163

Funding for the period 2020-2024

 International Projects

  • 2020 grant da Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) (prot. DC0190GP), titolo: Decision making in the time of COVID-19 (Elisa Ciaramelli, coordinatore locale, con Shayna Rosenbaum e Donna Addis, PIs)

National Projects

  • 2022-2025, PRIN. Titolo: Neuropsychological and neural circuit mechanisms for projecting memory into future choice (FORWARD) (with Mathew Diamond, PI). Local coordinator.  
  • 2021 FISR Finanziamento MUR, titolo “Dispositivi di sicurezza e distanze sociali nei luoghi aperti e chiusi: dove e come ci sentiamo al sicuro? (Francesca Frassinetti, local coordinator, with Tina Iachini, PI)
  • 2017-2020, PRIN. Titolo: Transitions in Retrieval-Induced Productive Sequences (TRIPS) (Elisa Ciaramelli, local coordinator, with Alessandro Treves, PI).
  • Fondi Ricerca Fondamentale Orientata (RFO), Universita' di Bologna

 

Active National and International Collaborations for the period 2020-2024

International collaborations

  • Morris Moscovitch (University of Toronto)
  • Shayna Rosenbaum (York University, Toronto)
  • Shahar Arzy (Hebrew University Jerusalem)
  • Alessandro Farnè (Universitè de Lyon)

National collaborations

  • Alessandro Treves (SISSA, Trieste)
  • Tina Iachini (Seconda Università Napoli)

 

 

Editorial activities in the period 2020-2024

 Entropy (topic editor), Frontiers in Psychology (reviewing editor), Experimental Brain Research (guest editor)

 

Fellow in scientific academies and / or executive committees of scientific associations for the period 2020-2024

 Member of: Memory Disorders Research Society, Cognitive Neuroscience Society, European Federation of Neuropsychological Societies, Società Italiana di Neuropsicologia

Linked Research Centre