We learn new words almost on a daily basis: as adults, a new element is introduced in our vocabulary every other day. With new words, we also learn about new objects and ideas - in most cases new words are not… Leggi tutto simply additional labels to be applied to familiar objects: they connote meanings that are unknown to the speaker of a language. However, when we experience, as adults, an unfamiliar word, typically its referent is not immediately available in the same context. How then can language, by itself, constitute such a reliable instrument for the acquisition of novel meanings? What do we exploit to induce new meanings on the basis of an unfamiliar sequence of sounds or graphical elements? BraveNewWord addresses these questions in an innovative multidisciplinary perspective, combining cutting-edge proposals from computational linguistics and empirical investigation techniques from experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. BraveNewWord posits three main sources for lexically-driven meaning acquisition: linguistic context, word structure, form-meaning mapping. The project advances a computational framework that models these mechanisms through data-driven, psychologically plausible distributional systems trained on examples of natural language usage. The quantitative characterizations and algorithmic definitions offered by these models constitute, in turn, the basis for BraveNewWord large-scale empirical investigation, involving both behavioral (reaction times, mouse-tracking trajectories, diachronic language changes) and neuroscience data (event-related potentials, neuroimaging). With its innovative perspective and advanced computational and empirical approach, BraveNewWord will constitute a non-incremental contribution to understanding how human speakers use new lexical information as a mean for enriching their semantic system, and provide a ground-breaking perspective on the cognitive processes relating language and thought.

In 2015, the United Nations formulated the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), as the world’s strategic plan to create a better world focusing on “people, planet and prosperity”. It is a plan that will engage all stakeholders - from European and international… Leggi tutto institutions as well as governments on national, regional and local level, to private stakeholders and NGOs, and further on to grassroots associations and individual citizens - working together to end extreme poverty, reduce inequality and protect the planet against the climate changes. The SDG have been adopted by 193 nations, among these all the EU member states (MS), and as a common European response to the SDG, the European Commission (EC) has developed and are implementing, together with the MS, a range of different strategies, plans and programmes that support the implementation of the SDG. Among these are e.g. the European Green Deal, The European Social Pillar and the European Skills Agenda, with which the EC and the MS work together to create a greener, more resilient, fair and inclusive European society. In all these initiatives, European diversities and the European Integration Project (EIP) are seen as an advantage to innovate together, increase equality and social inclusion in the society and create better opportunities for the European society to contribute to the SDG. There is a clear and strategic desire from the EC to engage the European citizens more in the EIP and the implementation of the SDG, but in order to create this engagement it is important that both the SDG, the EIP and the European strategies and plans that support the implementation of the SDG, become “each citizens property or agenda”, which is not the case today. Citizens working in government organisations, NGOs and research institutions, are very often aware of the SDGs, as many national, regional and local development strategies build on the SDG, as well as this is often the case for research strategies within universities. But for many other citizens, who are not working in policy-oriented organisations or research institutions, the SDG, as well as the EIP and development strategies, are not common knowledge, and are not values that are close to the consciousness of the citizens. A great challenge is to reach the citizens on an individual level, and the PLACES project will deal with this challenge, reaching out especially towards children and young people, as a sustainable development is about ensuring their future. If they can become more engaged and act as ambassadors, a cascade reaction is possible to be created from children to parents, and further on into the working place and the society. Only in that way the EU will be able to create the sustainable changes we want for our society. So, the PLACES project is basically motivated by the missing engagement within the European population to engage actively in the creation of a sustainable society.

Neuroaesthetics investigates the neural underpinnings involved in the aesthetic experience, which may transpire from harmonious interaction of neural systems linked to sensory-motor, emotion-valuation, and meaning-knowledge processes (Chatterjee & Vartanian, 2014; Nadal & Skov, 2015; Pelowski et al., 2016). The default… Leggi tutto mode and executive control networks, partly comprised of frontal-striatal circuits (Boot et al., 2017), have been suggested to play a significant role in the appreciation and judgment of visual artwork (Belfi et al., 2019; Cela-Conde et al., 2009, 2013; Vessel et al., 2019), and their interplay may synchronize neural systems engendering the aesthetic experience via top-down and bottom-up processes (Pelowski et al., 2017). Likewise, the posterior cerebellum has been posited to work as a predictive mechanism that matches internal schematic representations with the external environment in a regulatory fashion by integrating top-down and bottom-up processes to efficiently navigate one’s environment (Cattaneo et al., 2021; Van Overwalle, 2020), which may be essential in modulating reward and emotion throughout the aesthetic experience (Kesner, 2014; Van de Cruys & Wagemans, 2011). The predictive posterior cerebellum facilitates executive control/functioning, emotional (i.e., affective) processes, and social cognition via functional cerebral-cerebellar networks (Cattaneo et al 2021; Van Overwalle, 2020). Art-based content may recruit cerebral-cerebellar networks as trainings in art and visual design showed positive associations between cerebellar and prefrontal engagement and improved creative thinking (Saggar et al., 2017; Schlegel et al., 2015). Posterior cerebellar regions have been shown to be involved in the aesthetic appreciation and/or judgment of buildings (Kirk et al., 2009), faces (Kedia et al., 2014), images (Ishizu & Zeki, 2017), paintings (Ishizu & Zeki, 2013; Mizokami et al., 2014), and sculptures (Di Dio et al., 2011); however, empirical research has generally neglected further discussion about the role of the cerebellum within the visual aesthetic experience. Importantly, non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) sheds light on the causal role of neural areas within the aesthetic experience (Cattaneo, 2020). Moreover, the medial regions of cerebellum have been associated with the recognition and processing of emotions in humans (Adamaszek et al., 2017). Anodal and cathodal cerebellar transcranial direct current stimulation (ctDCS) medially positioned over the posterior cerebellum improved the emotional recognition of facial expressions (Ferrucci et al., 2012) while repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the posterior cerebellum disrupted the emotional recognition of faces (Ferrari et al., 2018) and bodies (Ferrari et al., 2019). In consideration of correlational and causative evidence, medial regions of the posterior cerebellum may play a role in the appreciation and affective appraisal and of figural visual artwork.

This project aims to develop a virtual companion for Social Media users that educates and supports teenage school students facing the threats of Social Media. These include discrimination and biases in general, possibly escalating to hate speech, bullying, fake news… Leggi tutto and other toxic content that can strongly affect the users in their real lives. The companion will raise awareness of potential threats in Social Media while still providing a satisfactory experience through the use of innovative gamification strategies and educative information selection algorithms. Using carefully designed gamification strategies, based on the concept of interactive counter-narrative, together with a learnt model of diffusion of biased and/or toxic content in Social Media, the companion will learn and revise its user interaction strategies in order to support the development of coping strategies in the targeted learner group. These strategies will be refined and personalized for different users and their social niches, pursuing the dual aims of (A) improving and creating healthy social relationships between the users, peers and the targets of bias, as well as, (B) increasing their understanding of the social effects of toxic content in Social Media and the user's role in its propagation. Experimentation will use data harvested from real Social Media and re-enact these examples in restricted and controllable conditions (e.g. schools, classes).