Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab

The Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab (CCNL) is a multidisciplinary research group established in October 2000 at the University of Padova. CCNL is located at the Department of General Psychology and tightly linked to the Padova Neuroscience Center. The lab is also twinned with the Computational Neuroimaging Lab at the San Camillo Research Hospital in Venice-Lido.  

The lab is involved in multidisciplinary research at the frontiers between cognitive science, neuroscience and computer science. The focus is on the (neuro)computational mechanisms underlying human cognition, from development to skilled performance and breakdowns of processing in neurological or neurodevelopmental disorders.

Our approach to modeling human perception and cognition is primarly based on deep neural networks cast in the framework of biologically-inspired generative models, as showcased by our pioneering work funded by the European Research Council (ERC GENMOD, 2008-2013). In a comparative perspective, we investigate emergent cognitive abilities in large-scale multimodal AI foundation models. Machine and deep learning techniques are also used in the lab for neuroinformatics and ICT applications.  

Computational modeling is complemented by psychophysical and neuroimaging studies on a variety of populations (including neurological patients and learning disabled children). The main areas of cognitive research include numerical cognition, attention and visuospatial awareness, reading and dyslexia.

Lab GitHub: https://github.com/CCNL-UniPD

Our research has been generously funded by European Research Council, European Commission, Cariparo Foundation, Compagnia di San Paolo, Italian Ministry of Health, Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research.