Marta Pizzolante

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Verified

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• Master of Science
• Postdoctoral research fellow at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Introduction Awe is a complex emotion unveiling a positive and mixed nature, which resembles the Romantic feeling of the Sublime. It has increasingly become the object of scientific investigation in the last twenty years. However, its underlying brain mechanisms are still unclear. To fully capture its nature in the lab, researchers have increasingl...

Background Transformative experiences (TEs) have been conceptualized in many ways, contexts, magnitudes, and durations, but at their heart, they entail some manner of adjustment, which contributes to changing individuals’ worldviews, actions, views of others and/or their own feelings, personality, and identity. Among the many elicitors identified a...

A breathtaking sunset, an immersive art exhibition, a captivating piece of music—all of these experiences can be deeply moving. These experiences can be called aesthetic experiences since they involve the perception and appreciation of the sensory qualities of objects or events. Aesthetic experiences are not simply about perceiving beauty, they are...

The aesthetic of our surrounding environment has a significant impact on our behavior. According to the SO -R model, specific features characterizing the environment act as stimuli (S) that affect the internal states of people-organisms (O)-, which, in turn, drive their behavioral responses (R). Specifically, engaging with aesthetically appealing e...

Over the last two decades, awe has attracted the attention of an increasing number of researchers. The use of virtual reality has been identified as one of the most effective techniques for eliciting awe, in addition to more personalized methods for inducing emotion, such as autobiographical recall. However, previous measures of awe were unable to...

Introduction Awe is a complex emotion unveiling a positive and mixed nature, which resembles the Romantic feeling of the Sublime. It has increasingly become the object of scientific investigation in the last twenty years. However, its underlying brain mechanisms are still unclear. To fully capture its nature in the lab, researchers have increasingl...

Epigenetics, the study of heritable changes in gene expression without altering DNA sequence, has gained significant attention due to its implications for gene regulation and chromatin stability. Epigenetic mechanisms play a fundamental role in gene-environment interactions, shaping individual development and adaptation. DNA methylation, histone mo...

The integration of transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography (TMS-EEG) has been sought to explore connectivity and cortical excitability in healthy and pathological subjects. Although the number of studies in this field is continuously increasing, there is still no consensus on the pre-processing pipeline. The goal of this work i...

Background Virtual Reality (VR) has already emerged as an effective instrument for simulating realistic interactions, across various domains. In the field of User Experience (UX), VR has been used to create prototypes of real-world products. Here, the question is to what extent the users’ experience of a virtual prototype can be equivalent to that...

Virtual reality can potentially induce a range of affective states and be a powerful tool for exploring affective responses in a controlled and immersive environment. It allows visualizing continuous affective experiences without duptions, enabling the measurement of behavioral and physiological changes during transitions between affective states....

Il Design Thinking (DT) è divenuto nel tempo un termine accettato all'interno del dominio dell'Innovation management (IM) in qualità di approccio improntato alla creatività e all'innovazione, basato sulle pratiche e i metodi di design. In particolare, come indica la Interaction Design Foundation, è impossibile identificare tutti quei fattori respon...

Virtual nature exposure has emerged as an effective method for promoting pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, also due to the increased emotional connection with nature itself. However, the role played by complex emotions elicited by virtual nature, such as awe, needs to be fully elucidated. Awe is an emotion stemming from vast stimuli, inclu...

Virtual Reality (VR) changed the ways through which art is produced and also experienced by the audience. VR can convey effective emotional and aesthetic experiences thanks to the sense of presence. So far, previous studies have mostly focused on the cognitive implications of using virtual environments in aesthetic contexts. However, empirical stud...

How do specific nature experiences in VR differ from the equivalent real ones? Although virtual reality (VR) is increasingly being used as an ecological tool to resemble even complex phenomena, a debated issue still concerns the extent to which experiences in VR are similar to the equivalent real ones. This is especially relevant at the emotional l...

Crisis and hostage negotiators are conflict resolution professionals who work toward peacefully resolving tense and possible volatile incidents. These law enforcement negotiators must possess comprehensive knowledge of the required skills and strategically deploy them to accomplish their goals. This exploratory Article examines the skills that make...

Art is a complex subject of analysis. Nonetheless, Empirical Aesthetics has proved that the interaction between some bottom-up and top-down mechanisms shapes individuals’ perception of a work of art. Recently, the Vienna Integrated Model for Art Perception [1] added that, during the observation of an artwork, the emotional state of the observer, as...

The concept of transformative experience (TE) has been widely explored by several disciplines from philosophy to neurobiology, and in different domains, from the spiritual to the educational one. This attitude has engendered heterogeneous models to explain this phenomenon. However, a consistent and clear understanding of this construct remains elus...

The considerable connection between religiosity/spirituality and positivity in life in general has been widely demonstrated. However, preliminary evidence has shown that when also a cognitive component is included, the direction of this relationship seems to emerge more clearly. Specifically, the differential pathways linking specific positive self...

Despite of the number of significant scientific discoveries in Italy, youth engagement with science and technology is still very low in this country. Teaching young generations about the complex relationship between science, technology, and society (STS) is fundamental in order to promote higher level critical thinking skills, foster lifelong civic...

Aesthetic perception implies the creation of a complex dynamic between an individual and a work of art, consisting of the interaction between bottom-up and top-down components, concerning, respectively, the features of the stimulus and the characteristics of the spectator. The goal of this project is to investigate the role of the emotional state o...