Laura Piccardi

Laura Piccardi
Sapienza University of Rome | la sapienza · Department of Psychology

Ph.D.

About

269
Publications
68,705
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Introduction
Dr. Piccardi is Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, Sapienza University, Italy. She is chief of the Spatial Cognition Laboratory and member of the Di.Vi.Na. laboratory directed by Cecilia Guariglia at IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome. Her main research domain focuses on investigating the individual differences as well as the brain lesions effects on human navigation, spatial cognition, visual imagery and visuospatial memory.
Additional affiliations
February 2015 - February 2020
Università degli Studi dell'Aquila
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
November 2007 - February 2015
January 2005 - December 2012
Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"

Publications

Publications (269)
Article
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Background/Objectives: Life expectancies have increased in most countries, leading to a higher accident rate among older drivers than their younger counterparts. While numerous studies have analyzed the decline in cognitive abilities and physical limitations as contributing factors, there are other considerations. For instance, younger male drivers...
Conference Paper
The increasing role of Virtual Reality in psychology introduces new methods for replicable experiments and enhances techniques for analysing human behaviours. Despite the technological advancements, a flexible and user-friendly approach for researchers and psychologists is still lacking, making it challenging to meet their specific needs and requir...
Preprint
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Clarifying the mechanisms underlying individual differences in creativity is essential to understand the complex nature of this phenomenon. The current research, drawing on the Investment Theory of Creativity and the AMORAL model, investigated the mediating role of ethics positions (idealism and relativism) in the association between openness to ex...
Article
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Background/Objectives: This study is based on data collected from a medical health record review to assess whether multidisciplinary intensive rehabilitation treatment in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients can improve global cognitive functioning and executive functions. Methods: The data related to PD patients were extrapolated from a clinical data...
Article
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Background: Drivers consider external and hypothetical behaviours of other drivers, but internal factors also impact road safety. Objectives: This study aims to examine the connection between Cognitive and Affective Theory of Mind (ToM) and Driving Style in road safety. It hypothesizes that a higher level of ToM corresponds to a greater ability to...
Article
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The editorial "The Contribution of Internal and External Factors to Human Spatial Navigation" by Laura Piccardi, Raffaella Nori, Jose Manuel Cimadevilla, and Maria Kozhevnikov in Brain Sciences is now available online. Spatial navigation involves various cognitive processes such as memory, attention, spatial updating, mental planning, and problem-...
Article
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Background: Spatial navigation allows us to move around our environment, walking being the most advanced form of human locomotion. Over the years, a range of tools has been developed to study spatial navigation in children. Aim. To describe the role of locomotion during the assessment of spatial navigation in children, providing an overview of the...
Article
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Background: Gambling Disorder (GD) is a bio-psycho-social disorder resulting from the interaction of clinical, cognitive, and affective factors. Impulsivity is a crucial factor in addiction studies, as it is closely linked to cognitive distortions in GD by encompassing impulsive choices, motor responses, decision-making, and cognitive biases. Also,...
Article
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Climate change anxiety (CCA) is an emerging yet not clearly defined construct. Here, we examine the relationship between CCA and climate change-related fear in response to messages differently framing uncertainty and anticipation concerning climate change, exploring how the former differs from general anxiety measures. To this purpose, young and he...
Article
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It is widely agreed upon that both natural and man-made sounds, including music, profoundly impact our emotions and cognitive abilities, such as our attention, memory, problem-solving, decision-making, and creativity [...]
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It is the Editorial page of a Special Issue on Physical Activity and Ageing.
Research
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This Editorial sums up the articles included in the Special Issue “Application of Virtual Reality in Spatial Memory" which is devoted to gathering studies on VR and spatial memory. The Special Issue includes eight contributions covering the application of VR for both children and adults. Six studies investigate which factors affect spatial navigati...
Article
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Growing old involves changes in physical, psychological, and cognitive functions. Promoting physical and mental health has become one of the priorities for an aging population. Studies have demonstrated the benefits of engaging in regular physical activity. Here, we aimed to understand the relationships between physical activity and working memory...
Article
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Aging involves several changes depending on genetic and behavioral factors, such as lifestyle and the number and quality of social relationships, which in turn can be influenced by empathy. Here, the change in the perceived social support across the lifespan as a function of empathy was investigated, considering the mediating role of empathy after...
Article
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Objective: Loneliness has been associated to a greater risk of cognitive decline and dementia in older individuals. However, evidence on whether this association also exists for older individuals who complain of cognitive problems is limited. We conducted a survey to examine the association between subjective cognitive decline in the working memor...
Preprint
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Aging involves several changes depending on genetic and behavioural factors, such as lifestyle and number and quality of social relationships, which in turn can be influenced by empathy. Here, the change in the perceived social support across the life span as a function of empathy was investigated, considering the mediating role of the empathy, aft...
Article
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The wide availability of electronic devices accessible to teenagers has enabled them to use the internet to communicate, share, and obtain information. However, the use of the internet and social media has also increased the risk of vulnerability, exposing people, particularly adolescents, to several risks. We collected data from a sample of 366 ad...
Article
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Visual illusions have long been used to study visual perception and contextual integration. Neuroimaging studies employ illusions to identify the brain regions involved in visual perception and how they interact. We conducted an Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) meta-analysis and meta-analytic connectivity modeling on fMRI studies using static...
Article
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Reading and interpreting a map represents an essential part of daily life, enabling appropriate orientation and navigation through space. Based on the idea that perceptual analogical reasoning is critical in aligning the spatial structure of the map with the spatial structure of the space and given the critical role of language, especially spatial...
Article
Previous research addressed the cognitive antecedents of children’s ability to plan future routine events mainly in terms of executive functioning. Additionally, most studies assessed planning through ‘high structure’ tools (e.g., the Tower of London), whereas little research employed ecological ‘low structure’ paper-pencil tasks, such as the Key S...
Article
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Introduction: Topographical memory is crucial for navigation and environmental representation. The Walking Corsi Test (WalCT) has been used to evaluate topographical memory in children from 4 years upward. The present study aims to determine whether adapted versions of the WalCT- by simplifying instructions and increasing motivation- can be adopte...
Article
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The study of the relationships between mood and creativity is long-standing. In this study, the effects of mood states on artistic creativity were investigated in ninety non-artist participants. Mood states were induced by instructing participants to listen to self-selected happy, sad, or neutral music for ten minutes. Then, all participants were a...
Article
Riassunto ­ Scopo del presente studio è di analizzare il contributo delle strategie di navigazione e del genere nel ricordare, a distanza di tempo, un percorso appreso da una mappa. A tale scopo, abbiamo prima valutato le diverse strategie di navigazione attraverso una batteria di test specifici. A 51 partecipanti è stato chiesto di memorizzare un...
Article
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Background: Based on studies of children with motor disabilities on topographic working memory (TWM), no influence of age was reported. The only differences were in the degree of mobility and exploration of the environment. The more active a child was in exploring the environment, the less his/her TWM was poor. However, in typically developing chi...
Article
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The Developmental Topographical Disorientation (DTD) is a pathological condition that impairs an individual’s ability to orient in space, even in the most familiar environments. It is a lifelong selective condition in individuals without brain damage or without impaired general cognitive functions. Here, we aimed at characterizing 54 individuals wi...
Article
The game of chess is a valuable extracurricular activity for children, with positive effects on their cognitive skills and academic achievements. We investigated the extent to which the Giant Chess Game (GCG) played on a giant chessboard enhances working memory in “navigational-vista” space and “reaching” space. We also assessed if the GCG enhances...
Article
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Travel planning (TP) is a kind of planning devoted to spatial orientation that is distinguishable from general planning (GP). It is crucial to reach a destination, since it allows to select the best route according to the environmental features (e.g., the one with little traffic or the safest). TP is also needed to avoid obstacles along the way and...
Article
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The last decade has seen an increase in compulsive behaviours among young adults worldwide, particularly in 2020, during restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Importantly, even if shopping is an ordinary activity in everyday life, it can become a compulsive behaviour for certain individuals. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of...
Article
Divergent thinking is widely recognised as an individual creative potential and an essential factor in fostering creativity since the early stages of life. Albeit previous research revealed that creativity could be pursued through controlled mental processes (e.g. reasoning), the debate about the impact of children's reasoning on divergent thinking...
Article
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In the last decade, several cases affected by Developmental Topographical Disorientation (DTD) have been described. DTD consists of a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting the ability to orient in the environment despite well-preserved cognitive functions, and in the absence of a brain lesion or other neurological or psychiatric conditions. Describ...
Article
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Previous studies explored the relationships between field dependent-independent cognitive style (FDI) and creativity, providing misleading and unclear results. The present research explored this problematic interplay through the lens of the Geneplore model, employing a product-oriented task: the Visual Creative Synthesis Task (VCST). The latter req...
Article
Studies that have shown a distinction between object and spatial imagery suggest more than one type of aphantasia and hyperphantasia, yet this has not been systematically investigated in studies on imagery ability extremes. Also, if the involuntary imagery is preserved in aphantasia and how this condition affects other skills is not fully clear. W...
Conference Paper
Introduction: Spatial navigation allows us to move in the environment, walking being the most developed way of human locomotion. Over the years, different tools designed to study spatial navigation features in children have been employed. This work reviews the evidence provided by these studies and analyses the available instruments which are speci...
Article
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Many automotive industries are developing technologies to assist human drivers in suggesting wiser choices to improve drivers' behaviour. The technology that makes use of this modality is defined as a "digital nudge". An example of a digital nudge is the GPS that is installed on smartphones. Some studies have demonstrated that the use of GPS negati...
Article
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Editorial on the Research Topic Effects of Physical Exercise on Brain and Cognitive Functioning This Research Topic (RT) focused on the effects of physical activity (PA) on brain and cognitive functions across the lifespan. A growing body of literature highlights how a physically active lifestyle is associated with reduced risk of dementia, better...
Article
Background: Detecting the beginning of cognitive decay is crucial to guarantee good management and the possible prevention of dementia progression. The present study arises from observations collected during an educational event to promote mental and physical health in which incidental neuropsychological data gathered on 290 citizens showed the im...
Article
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INTRODUCTION: After traumatic brain injury (TBI), cognitive, behavioral alterations and seizures frequently occur. Beside instrumental examinations, neuropsychological testing is the common clinical practice for detecting cognitive deficits. However, in highly skilled individuals, subtle changes with a large impact on fitness to fly may be neglecte...
Article
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Background: In children with myelomeningocele (MMC) and arthrogryposis multiplex congenital (AMC), adequate rehabilitation measures are accessible with the goal of attaining the utmost motor development. However, there is a lack of knowledge as to how children develop navigation utilizing their locomotion abilities. The aim of the present study was...
Article
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Background: Aesthetic experience begins through an intentional shift from automatic visual perceptual processing to an aesthetic state of mind that is evidently directed towards sensory experience. In the present study, we investigated whether portrait descriptions affect the aesthetic pleasure of both ambiguous (i.e., Arcimboldo's portraits) and...
Conference Paper
Introduction: To determine whether adapted versions of the Walking Corsi Test (WalCT) to measure topographical memory can be used in 2- and 3-years old toddlers born at term (T) and preterm (PT). Patients and Methods: The original WalCT was adapted to 20 T and 13 PT toddlers (27.74 months: SD = 5.13 months). Two versions were designed to simplify i...
Article
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Background: Military pilots show advanced visuospatial skills. Previous studies demonstrate that they are better at mentally rotating a target, taking different perspectives, estimating distances and planning travel and have a topographic memory. Here, we compared navigational cognitive styles between military pilots and people without flight expe...
Article
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Background: Topographic memory is the ability to reach various places by recognizing spatial layouts and getting oriented in familiar environments. It involves several different cognitive abilities, in particular executive functions (EF), such as attention, working memory, and planning. Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)...
Preprint
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Individuals with agoraphobia exhibit impaired exploratory activity when navigating unfamiliar environments. However, no studies have investigated the contribution of visuospatial working memory (VSWM) in these individuals' ability to acquire and process spatial information while considering the use of egocentric and allocentric coordinates or envir...
Article
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Spatial memory has been studied through different instruments and tools with different modalities of administration. The cognitive load varies depending on the measure used and it should be taken into account to correctly interpret results. The aim of this research was to analyze how men and women perform three different spatial memory tasks with t...
Article
Creativity can be conceptualised as the result of a blend of individual interacting resources. The present study investigated in a sample of 83 young Italian adults the interplay amongst planning, personality, and real-world creativity, assuming the Big Five personality dimensions as moderator variables. The ability to plan was assessed by means of...
Article
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Individual factors like gender and familiarity can affect the kind of environmental representation that a person acquires during spatial navigation. Men seem to prefer relying on map-like survey representations, while women prefer using sequential route representations. Moreover, a good familiarity with the environment allows more complete environm...
Article
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Field independence (FI) is the extent to which a person perceives part of a field as discrete from the surrounding field rather than embedded in the field. Several studies proposed that it represents a cognitive style that is a relatively stable individuals' predisposition towards information processing. This study investigated the effects of Field...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background: Military pilots show high visuo-spatial skills. Previous studies demonstrate that they are better in mental rotating a target, in taking different perspectives, in estimating distances, in travel planning and in topographic memory. Here, we compared navigational cognitive styles between military pilots and people without flight experien...
Article
In the present study, we investigated whether both the ordinary and the aggressive driving violations may be predicted by the number of pumps on the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART) and whether gender as well as alcohol use may explain for a different risk tendency. To this purpose, we assessed 123 (61 males) young car drivers with a minimum of 2 ye...
Article
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Gender differences are often reported in spatial abilities, most of the times favouring men. Even during wayfinding, which requires planning and decision-making, such as choosing roads to take or shortcuts, men are in general better and faster than women. Although different interpretations have been proposed to explain men’s advantage in navigation...
Article
Bondi, Danilo, Vittore Verratti, Raffaella Nori, Laura Piccardi, Giulia Prete, Tiziana Pietrangelo, and Luca Tommasi. Spatial abilities at high altitude: Exploring the role of cultural strategies and hypoxia. High Alt Med Biol. 00:000-000, 2020. Background: Over the past couple of decades, the number of people of different cultures traveling to pl...
Article
Background Visual Mental Imagery (VMI), the ability of seeing with the mind eyes, has shown to be related with autobiographical memory deficits inAlzheimer's disease (AD) (El Haj et al., 2019). Hippocampus, affected by AD neuropathology since early stages, plays a pivotal contribution to the recollection of previous memories in service of VMI; howe...
Article
Moral sense is important for determining human behaviour. Moral sense becomes crucial in operational environments in which choices must be made that have complex moral implications in highly stressful situations. Behavioural and neuroimaging findings have shown the existence of gender-related differences in moral reasoning. The present study aimed...
Article
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In the present study, we employed the dual task technique to explore the role of language in topographical working memory when landmarks are present along the path. We performed three experiments to mainly test the effects of language but also motor, spatial motor and spatial environment interferences on topographical working memory. We aimed to cl...
Article
Divergent thinking involves the ability to find many different and new responses or solutions to open-ended problems. The ability to think divergently has been associated with different cognitive processes, including intuitive and rational thinking styles. However, research has not specifically addressed the extent to which divergent thinking is as...
Article
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Over time, the view that creativity is embodied has emerged. In order to explore if visual creativity is supported by embodied mechanisms, the simulation approach was used as a framework of reference. The idea that visual creativity relies on mental representations that implement motor processes was faced. Participants were instructed to think alou...
Article
In this study, normative data for the age-range 18–40 years have been provided for the Verbal Judgment Test (VJT), which underpins abstract reasoning on the basis of four subtests: “Differences”, “Proverbs”, “Absurdities” and “Classifications”. 554 participants (280 males and 274 females) were recruited and the following data were provided: means a...
Article
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Esthetic experience is the result of the coordination of different cognitive processes. It has been widely reported that top-down processes of orienting of attention interact with bottom-up perceptual facilitation occurring during esthetic experience of art-works. Here we use whole-part ambiguity as a tool to test the effect of global and local pri...
Article
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Background: Neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies have suggested that common features characterize both Gambling Disorder (GD) and Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), but these conditions have rarely been compared. Methods: We provide evidence for the similarities and differences between GD and AUD in neural correlates of executive functions by pe...
Article
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Aim: The aim of the present study was to investigate topographical working memory in individuals with motor disabilities. Methods: Topographical working memory was investigated using the Walking Corsi Test in 89 participants with motor disability, mean age 11.5 years, of which 40 with cerebral palsy, 31 with spina bifida, and 18 with orthopaedic or...
Article
How people acquire environmental information brings out individual differences that are extremely large and robust. We assume that different spatial strategies used to represent, explore and move through the environment may predict risky driving behaviour. Here, we investigated spatial strategies and driving behaviour in 167 college students (86 wo...
Article
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Forty children with cerebral palsy (CP) and 120 typical developing children (TD) performed a topographic working memory (WalCT) test requiring to move their body in a walked vista-space and a visuo-spatial test (CBT) requiring just reaching movements. WalCT score was significantly higher in GMFCS II/III than in TD. CBT score was significantly lower...
Chapter
Background: This study investigated the effect of estradiol levels on spatial orientation skills. Method: Twenty-five healthy young women were asked to perform the Cognitive Map Test (CMT), a virtual environment test that assesses the formation and use of a mental representation of a virtual town , and a computerized version of the Mental Rotation...
Article
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Planning ability is fundamental for goal-directed spatial navigation. Preliminary findings from patients and healthy individuals suggest that travel planning (TP)-namely, navigational planning-can be considered a distinct process from visuospatial planning (VP) ability. To shed light on this distinction, two right brain-damaged patients without hem...
Article
It is well-known that ageing is associated with a decrease in working memory abilities. It is not so clear at what age the decline begins and if there are differences in the decline of verbal and visuo-spatial working memory. This study investigates the effect of ageing on verbal and visuo-spatial working memory by comparing the performance of 880...
Article
This paper outlined the relevance of drawing in learning processes activated during a training aimed at sensitizing values related to the concept of ‘legality’. Two independent judges classified drawings of 186 children as ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ considering the content and the description provided. We analysed gender differences in using bright and d...
Article
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The role of emotional landmarks in navigation has been scarcely studied. Previous findings showed that valence and arousal of landmarks increase landmark’s salience and improve performance in navigational memory tasks. However, no study has directly explored the interplay between valence and arousal of emotionally laden landmarks in embodied and no...
Article
Musical expertise has positive effects on cognition, especially on verbal and linguistic processing. In this study the relationships between musical expertise, not involving improvisation training, and divergent thinking were explored. Expert and self-taught musicians were tested in musical, verbal and visual divergent thinking, and were compared w...