Pietro Cipresso

Pietro Cipresso
University of Turin | UNITO · Dipartimento di Psicologia

Associate Professor

About

321
Publications
255,880
Reads
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8,983
Citations
Introduction
Associate Professor of Psychometrics at University of Turin. Chief Editor of Frontiers in Quantitative Psychology and Measurement (for both Frontiers in Psychology and Frontiers in Applied Mathematics and Statistics). Series Editor of "Transactions on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence," Springer. Editor and statistical advisor for: Scientific Reports (Nature Publishing Group), PLoS ONE, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, BMC Psychology, and many others.
Additional affiliations
April 2021 - present
University of Turin
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
July 2017 - March 2021
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
January 2013 - June 2017
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Position
  • PostDoc Position
Education
February 2016 - February 2016
University of Padua
Field of study
  • Psychology
July 2010
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Field of study
  • Ph.D. internship, Psychophysiology
January 2007 - June 2010
IULM University
Field of study
  • PhD in Psychology

Publications

Publications (321)
Article
Full-text available
Measurements in psychology always have been a significant challenge. Research in quantitative psychology has developed several methods and techniques to improve our understanding of humans. Over the last few decades, the rapid advancement of technology had led to more extensive study of human cognition, including both the emotional and behavioral a...
Article
Full-text available
The recent appearance of low cost virtual reality (VR) technologies – like the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive and the Sony PlayStation VR – and Mixed Reality Interfaces (MRITF) – like the Hololens – is attracting the attention of users and researchers suggesting it may be the next largest stepping stone in technological innovation. However, the history...
Article
Full-text available
This study examines the relationship between cognitive and affective flexibility, two critical aspects of adaptability. Cognitive flexibility involves switching between activities as rules change, assessed through task-switching or neuropsychological tests and questionnaires. Affective flexibility, meanwhile, refers to shifting between emotional an...
Article
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A meditative ‘technique’ is conceived as a continuum of different affective states involving mind and body jointly. Meditative practices can involve cognitive effort (e.g., focused attention and open-minded techniques), as well as automatic and implicit practices (e.g., transcendental techniques). The NGALSO tantric self-healing meditation techniqu...
Article
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Theoretically, affective states have always been conceived as complex phenomena enabling individuals to respond flexibly and dynamically to environmental demands. Methodologically, the novel field of Affect Dynamics has started to analyze affective states as inherently dynamic and interdependent phenomena by focusing on how and why they fluctuate o...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Affect dynamics, or the study of changing patterns of emotional responses across time, has emerged as a key field of research in Mathematical Psychology. Traditionally, Affect dynamics research has relied on the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), a data gathering technique in which participants describe their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors at var...
Article
Background Extended reality (XR), encompassing technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality, has rapidly gained prominence in health care. However, existing XR research often lacks rigor, proper controls, and standardization. Objective To address this and to enhance the transparency and quality of reporting in early-p...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a multifaceted neurodegenerative disorder that progressively affects both the central and peripheral nervous systems. This pilot study aimed to examine the effects of repeated whole-body cryostimulation (WBC) sessions on the sympathovagal balance in PD patients and correlate heart rate variability (HRV) index...
Article
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A presentation of the latest issues in quantitative psychology
Article
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Emotions are dynamic processes; their variability relates to psychological well-being and psychopathology. Affective alterations have been linked to mental diseases like depression, although little is known about how similar patterns occur in healthy individuals. This study investigates the psychophysiological correlations of emotional processing i...
Article
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Virtual Reality is an effective technique for eliciting emotions. It provides immersive and ecologically valid emotional experiences while maintaining experimental control. Recently, novel VR forms like 360° videos have been used successfully for emotion elicitation. Some preliminary databases of 360° videos for emotion elicitation have been propos...
Article
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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...
Article
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Introduction The evaluation of memory is a crucial aspect of both cognitive research and clinical applications, as it offers valuable insights into an individual’s cognitive wellbeing and performance. Conventional neuropsychological assessments represent the established method for assessing different aspects of memory. Recent technological advancem...
Article
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The recent emergence of low-cost virtual reality technologies, like 360° videos and images is attracting the attention of researchers suggesting it could be the next significant step in technological innovation. The birth of 360° videos and images is quite young, it goes back to the middle of the nineteenth century and then spread more and more in...
Article
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The present perspective introduces a novel psychometric tool designed to enhance the evaluation of alexithymia. Alexithymia, a condition marked by difficulties in recognizing and expressing emotions, along with a propensity to direct attention outside rather than toward one’s own interior experiences, is commonly investigated through self-report qu...
Article
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Completing cognitive and motor tasks simultaneously requires a high level of cognitive control in terms of executive processes and attentional abilities. Most of the daily activities require a dual-task performance. While walking, for example, it may be necessary to adapt gait to obstacles of the environment or simply participate in a conversation;...
Article
Background Technology is already a part of our daily lives, and its influence is growing rapidly. This evolution has not spared the health care field. Nowadays, a crucial challenge is considering aspects such as design, development, and implementation, highlighting their functionality, ease of use, compatibility, performance, and safety when a new...
Preprint
BACKGROUND Technology is already a part of our daily lives, and its influence is growing rapidly. This evolution has not spared the health care field. Nowadays, a crucial challenge is considering aspects such as design, development, and implementation, highlighting their functionality, ease of use, compatibility, performance, and safety when a new...
Preprint
BACKGROUND Extended reality (XR), encompassing technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality, has rapidly gained prominence in health care. However, existing XR research often lacks rigor, proper controls, and standardization. OBJECTIVE To address this and to enhance the transparency and quality of reporting in early-p...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) often presents challenges related to spatial navigation and retention of spatial information. Navigating space involves intricate integration of bodily and environmental cues. Spatial memory is dependent on two distinct frame of reference systems for organizing this information: egocentric and allocentri...
Conference Paper
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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....
Article
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The response of older people to the COVID-19 pandemic has attracted much attention as they are at increased risk of adverse outcomes. A longitudinal study has shown that improvement in global cognitive, executive and language functioning in healthy older adults enrolled at the University of the Third Age appears to play a protective role against em...
Article
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Mental Flexibility oscillates between adaptive variability in behavior and the capacity to restore homeostasis, linked to mental health. It has recently been one of the most investigated abilities in mental and neurological diseases such as Anorexia nervosa and Parkinson’s disease, studied for rigidity or cognitive inflexibility. Patients with anor...
Article
Over the last decades, theoretical perspectives in the interdisciplinary field of the affective sciences have proliferated rather than converged due to differing assumptions about what human affective phenomena are and how they work. These metaphysical and mechanistic assumptions, shaped by academic context and values, have dictated affective const...
Article
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Mental flexibility (MF) has long been defined as cognitive flexibility. Specifically, it has been mainly studied within the executive functions domain. However, there has recently been increased attention towards its affective and physiological aspects. As a result, MF has been described as an ecological and cross-subject skill consisting of respon...
Article
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Sexual violence is among the offences on which the public has expressed the greatest alarm and punitiveness and towards which more severe norms and restraining measures have been introduced in several countries in recent years. Outside of Anglo-American countries, few studies have been conducted on the factors that influence public judgments about...
Article
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EXecutive-functions Innovative Tool 360° (EXIT 360°) is an original 360° instrument for an ecologically valid and multicomponent evaluation of executive functioning. This work aimed to test the diagnostic efficacy of EXIT 360° in distinguishing executive functioning between healthy controls (HC) and patients with Parkinson’s Disease (PwPD), a neuro...
Article
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In this collection, BMC Psychology provides a venue for new research covering all aspects of digital psychology. Our goal is to expand the breadth of knowledge offered by the scholarship and provide a platform that could help laypersons manage a technology-laden lifestyle. We welcome submissions that cover all aspects of this collection topic. Some...
Article
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Older adults have been reported to have increased susceptibility to the adverse effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection, such as fatal outcomes, cognitive decline, and changes in physical and/or mental health. However, few studies have examined neuropsychological changes by comparing measurements before and during the pandemic in healthy older people. In a...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
In psychology, the term affect has been increasingly used to indicate an overarching state including a wide range of phenomena, including the experience of feelings, moods, and/or emotions (Schiller et al., 2022). Affective states, in particular, refer to individuals' current emotional state or mood toward allostatic goals. The first attempt to out...
Article
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Introduction: Over the last decades, interactive technologies appeared a promising solution in the ecological evaluation of executive functioning. We have developed the EXecutive-functions Innovative Tool 360° (EXIT 360°), a new instrument that exploits 360° technologies to provide an ecologically valid assessment of executive functioning. Aim:...
Article
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Machine Learning (ML) offers unique and powerful tools for mental health practitioners to improve evidence-based psychological interventions and diagnoses. Indeed, by detecting and analyzing different biosignals, it is possible to differentiate between typical and atypical functioning and to achieve a high level of personalization across all phases...
Chapter
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This chapter aims to describe the multidimensional virtual reality tools applied to healthcare: in particular the comparison between virtual reality traditional tolls and the 360° videos. The VR traditional devices could differ in terms of specific graphics (2D/3D), display devices (head mounted display), and track- ing/sensing tools. Although they...
Article
Full-text available
Traditional neuropsychological evaluations are usually carried out using psychometric paper and pencil tests. Nevertheless, there is a continuous discussion concerning their efficacy to capture lifelike abilities. The introduction of new technologies, such as Virtual Reality (VR) and 360° spherical photos and videos, has improved the ecological val...
Article
Full-text available
Aging may be associated with conditions characterized by motor and cognitive alterations, which could have a detrimental impact on daily life. Although motors and cognitive aspects have always been treated as separate entities, recent literature highlights their relationship, stressing a strong association between locomotion and executive functions...
Article
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This study aimed to investigate the association between history of traumatic experiences, compulsive Internet use and reflective functioning in an Italian sample. The relationship between history of traumatic experiences and excessive Internet use was fully mediated by uncertain reflective functioning. Contrary to literature, no gender influence w...
Preprint
Full-text available
We present here a unifying framework for affective phenomena: the Human Affectome. By synthesizing a large body of literature, we have converged on definitions that disambiguate the commonly used terms—affect, feeling, emotion, and mood. Based on this definitional foundation, and under the premise that affective states reflect allostatic concerns,...
Article
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One important feature of a neuropsychological test is its ecological validity, which defines how much patients’ test scores are linked to real-life functioning. However, many of the currently available neuropsychological tools show low to moderate levels of ecological validity. Virtual reality (VR) emerged as a possible solution that might enhance...
Article
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Cognitive frailty is defined as a clinical condition characterized by both physical frailty and cognitive impairment, without reaching the criteria for dementia. The major goal of rehabilitation intervention is to assist patients in performing ordinary personal duties without the assistance of another person, or at the very least to remove the need...
Article
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Research has shown that emotion (dys)regulation is a central feature in adolescence, resulting from the mutual interactions between neurobiological and temperamental features: indeed, a lack in the ability to regulate affective states is related to a wide range of pathological outcomes and behavioral problems. Emotional sensitivity (ES) is a dispos...
Article
Full-text available
Mentalization is the ability to understand behaviors as underlying mental states such as thoughts, emotions, and motivations. Mentalization development is considered complete between 8 to 12 years old. The possibility to work on this competence may have a substantial role in preventing or intervening in child psychopathology. Mentalizing Skills (MS...
Article
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Unilateral spatial neglect (USN) is a frequent repercussion of a cerebrovascular accident, typically a stroke. USN patients fail to orient their attention to the contralesional side to detect auditory, visual, and somatosensory stimuli, as well as to collect and purposely use this information. Traditional methods for USN assessment and rehabilitati...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction Executive dysfunctions constitute a significant public health problem: their high impact on everyday life makes it a priority to identify early strategies for evaluating and rehabilitating these disorders in a real-life context. The ecological limitation of traditional neuropsychological tests and several difficulties in administering...
Article
Full-text available
Recently, there has been an increasing interest in using 360° virtual-reality video for an ecologically valid assessment of executive functioning in the neurologic population. In this framework, we have developed the EXecutive-functions Innovative Tool (EXIT 360°), an original 360°-based instrument for a multicomponent, ecologically valid evaluatio...
Article
Full-text available
Digital technology use plays an essential role in adolescents' psychological adjustment, impacting their mental health and well-being. In this scenario, Problematic Internet Use (PIU) is a risky condition for developing behavioral addiction in adolescence. Most of the research on PIU in adolescence focus on dimensions that may amplify or buffer it,...
Chapter
Over the last years, Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) emerged as an alternative data collection strategy to repeatedly assess people in real-life, thus improving the ecological validity and reliability of data. As a matter of fact, the increasing field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the growing availability of smartpho...
Chapter
Emotion regulation has emerged as one of the most researched topics in clinical psychology over the last years. But what does differentiate emotion regulation from other important constructs? Furthermore, what do digital technologies can add to the understanding and delivery of clinical interventions? Considering that alongside other regulatory pro...
Chapter
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3D personal data is a type of data that contains useful information for product design, online sale services, medical research and patient follow-up. Currently, hospitals store and grow massive collections of 3D data that are not accessible by researchers, professionals or companies. About 2.7 petabytes a year are stored in the EU26. In parallel to...
Article
This work presents a scoping review of psychological interventions where biofeedback is enhanced by immersive natural Virtual Reality scenarios. Our target is to describe the biofeedback implementations in which the physiological feedback to the user is embedded in the design of the virtual environment. We focus specifically on the studies leveragi...
Article
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p class="Abstract"> Developing automatic methods to measure psychological stress in everyday life has become an important research challenge. Here, we describe the design and implementation of a personalized mobile system for the detection of psychological stress episodes based on Heart-Rate Variability (HRV) indices. The system’s architecture cons...
Article
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Background For many years, biofeedback and neurofeedback have been implemented in the treatment of depression. However, the effectiveness of these techniques on depressive symptomatology is still controversial. Hence, we conducted a meta-analysis of studies extracted from PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and Embase. Methods Two different strings wer...
Article
Full-text available
Over the last few decades, several studies have shown the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of VR-based instruments in the early evaluation of executive dysfunction (ED) in psychiatric and neurologic conditions. Due to the negative impact of ED in everyday functioning, identifying innovative strategies for evaluating ED allows clinicians to...
Article
Full-text available
Executive dysfunction represents a common non-motor symptom in Parkinson’s disease (PD), with a substantial negative impact on daily functioning and quality of life. Assessing executive functions (EFs) with ecological tools is therefore essential. The ecological limitations of traditional neuropsychological tests have led to increased use of virtua...
Article
Full-text available
When facing a negative event, people implement different strategies to regulate ongoing emotions. Although the previous literature has suggested that the emotional intensity of a negative episode is associated with the characteristics of the subsequent autobiographical memory, it is still unknown whether emotion regulation (ER) moderates this relat...
Article
Full-text available
According to a long tradition of research, people are used to mentally time travel: That is, to recreate memories from the past and envision future scenarios. To date, a growing body of evidence has revealed that people’s estimations about past and future emotional states are inaccurate. Nevertheless, the mechanisms underlying these biases are stil...