Roberto Dell’Acqua

Roberto Dell’Acqua is Full professor of Cognitive Science at the School of Psychology of the University of Padova.

Current position

Former Head of the Department of Developmental Psychology (DPSS). Founder of the Neuroimaging Labs sector in his Department. Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Attention & Performance Society, and Editor of major scientific Journals in the field of Cognitive Science and Neuroscience. Principal investigator of the EEG and NIRS Units at the DPSS.

Research areas

  • Behavioral investigations of attention limitations in the temporal domain. As a pioneer in the discovery of the attentional blink (AB) phenomenon, several research lines in his labs are still underway to unveil the AB’s EEG and neural correlates.
  • Neuropsychological assessment of attention functions following brain damage. Using the psychological refractory period paradigm, a team of past and present collaborators are seeking to understand the causes of the so-called ‘mental slowness’ affecting patients who suffered traumatic close-head injuries.
  • Cognitive electrophysiology of attention functions in human adults. The EEG/ERP approach is particularly well-suited to capture at the msec level the dynamics underlying an attention shift along the horizontal meridian. This approach, and state-of-the-art analytical approaches, is currently employed in his lab for in-depth explorations of the activity of the fronto-parietal circuit in human adults.
  • Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) of attention functions in human adults. He and his collaborators are presently endeavoring to analyze variations in the concentration of oxy- and de-oxy hemoglobin in the cortical micro-flow so as to map out the regions of the cortical tissue responsible of the striking limitation in the memory maintenance of visually displayed objects.

Mendeley: https://www.mendeley.com/profiles/roberto-dellacqua/

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