Francesco Vespignani

Francesco Vespignani is associate professor of General Psychology at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization of the University of Padua. He is a member of the Cognition and Language Laboratory, of the PNC (Padua Neurcoscience Center) and of the I-APPROVE (International Auditory Processing Project in Venice) at the University of Padua. His research focuses on architecture and mechanisms of language processing with a specific interest on the on-line processes of sentence comprehension. On these topics he conducted behavioural (self-paced reading and eye tracking) and neurophysiological (EEG) experiments, especially in the fields of syntax, pragmatics and on prediction in literal and figurative language. Aside from fundamental research he is currently moving his interests toward the study of language development and special populations (deafness). He is currently involved in the research projects REPLAI (Repetition Experiments as Probes of Linguistics Analysis and Integration) funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR).