Psymed Lab- Psychology Lab

The Psychology Lab studies how cognitive, affective, and social processes influence behavior and decision making in normal and pathological conditions.

Main research areas:

Communication in healthcare settings: individual and organizational level modulation factors in the doctor-patient relationship

• Analysis of the motivations and emotional and relational competences of healthcare workers that influence caretaking and decision making in the clinical setting.
• Evaluation of patients' expectations and emotions about clinical outcomes (e.g. treatment efficacy, placebo and nocebo effects, quality of life, therapy adherence, satisfaction with healthcare received).

Interpersonal perception, psychology of emotions and cognitive processes

• Study of cognitive processes underlying face perception. Individual differences in face recognition ability in healthy and patient populations. 
• Study of the effect of face perception on social behavior.
• Analysis of individual differences in the response to emotional stimuli and stressful events in the general population and in patients affected by chronic disease.

Psychometric evaluation of personality traits and individual differences

• Analysis of the impact of temperamental traits on emotional and cognitive processes in order to develop personalized treatment pathways.
• Analysis of the relationship between personality traits, therapeutic outcomes, functional/dysfunctional beliefs regarding health promotion, and decision making in the clinical domain.

Psychophysiology of sleep-wake rhythm and of dreams

• Study of the relationship between sleep architecture and information processing, reaction to the environment, and psychophysical well-being in the general population and in patients with sleep disorders.
• Study of the relationship between circadian rhythms and individual variance in terms of the efficiency of cognitive and emotional processes.

Teaching activities:

Part of the expected activities in the integrated course in General Psychology in the Medicine and Surgery degree program (General Psychology Laboratory, channels A and B) are conducted in the Lab.

The lab activity is also an integral part of the experimental thesis preparation for the degree programs in Medicine and Surgery (in Italian and English), Obstetrics and Nursing Science,  Nursing, Obstetrics, Dietetics, Medical Radiology, and Logopedy.

Instrumentation:

• PC for the administration of experimental tasks/recording of behavioral and subjective responses
• 2 portable Micromed polygraphs for the measurement of central (EEG) and peripheral (EMG, EOG, ECG, EDA) physiological indices
• Actigraphs
• Psychometric materials and tests
• Mathlab and E-prime software for developing experimental tasks and synchronizing data collection.