The research group of prof. Agostini deals mainly with color perception, perception and movement, spatial cognition and numerical cognition. Moreover, the group has realized numerous applied projects, making use of the methodological skills and knowledge developed in the lab. In these applied projects, the group developed interventions aimed at the prevention and promotion of health and well-being, sensory disabilities, motor disorders, sports, tourism, education road, food education, international cooperation.
Over the past 10 years, the group has implemented over 20 projects funded by the European Union, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, the Province of Trieste, the Municipality of Trieste and various local associations, receiving funding for approximately 1 million euros.
The group has numerous collaborations with research groups from other national and foreign universities, including: University of Cagliari, University of Chieti-Pescara, CSUEB of San Francisco (USA), De Montfort University of Leicester (UK), German Sport University of Cologne (Germany), Rutgers University of Newark (USA), Sheffield Hallam University (UK), University of Washington, Seattle (USA), University of Ljubljana (SI), University of Rijeka (HR), University of Pécs (HU).
The group of prof. Agostini is also active in the organization of scientific events of global importance. Indeed, it is organizing the European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP), the most important European conference in the field of perception, which will take place in Trieste from 26 to 30 August 2018 and will be attended by over 900 researchers from all over the world.
The main research lines are:
1) Achromatic color perception
In this field research mainly concerns the effects of the context on the phenomena of constancy and achromatic contrast. The systematic manipulation of spatial relations between induced regions and inducing regions led to the discovery of the reversed contrast phenomenon that revolutionized the interpretation of the simultaneous contrast phenomenon of whiteness, highlighting the role of global factors at the expense of local ones.
2) Effects of visual and auditory stimuli in the perception and execution of sports movements
Through research conducted both in the field and in the laboratory, the group investigates mainly in three areas: the ability to distinguish the sound associated with one’s own technical gesture from those of other athletes; the possibility to use visual and acoustic models to standardize performance; the importance of visual and acoustic information in anticipating the outcome of technical gestures executed by opponents. The sports taken into consideration so far have been, among others, athletics, tennis, golf, football and volleyball, providing potential ideas for the development of perceptual-motor training protocols.
3) Rhythmic-acustic stimulation and Parkinson disease
The scientific know-how on modulation of complex movements through sound – at the beginning developed by the group in the sport field – has been recently applied in the clinical field. The group of prof. Agostini works on the development of rhythmic-acoustic stimulation to support motor rehabilitation of patients suffering from Parkinson disease. Thanks to the well consolidated collaboration with the biomedical engineering group of the University of Cagliari, a particular attention has been paid to the quantitative evaluation of movements and specifically to the kinematics of the patients' walk.
4) Spatial representation in sighted and visually impaired subjects
In the field of spatial cognition, the group of prof. Agostini focuses on two main research lines: the role of movement on spatial updating and the ability to create a mental representation of a verbally described environment. In this research sighetd and visually impaired participants have been tested, thanks to the involvement of several local associations and local bodies, active in the field of disabilities.
5) Representation of quantities and SNARC effect
In the field of numerical cognition, several studies have been conducted on spatial representation of symbolic and non-symbolic quantities. In particular, the effect of Spatial-Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) was investigated, studying its applicability to quantities with different properties. Indeed, studies have been conducted on spatial representation of symbolic quantities, such as numbers and musical notes, and non-symbolic quantities, such as luminance, dimension of plane geometrical figures and emotions. Currently, the mental representation of illusory quantities is being investigated.
