The main research interest concerns chronopsychology, with a particular focus on the effects of time of day and synchrony, as well as differences in circadian typology. These aspects are studied in relation to cognitive processes (especially memory, attention, and decision-making), social cognition, the quantity/quality of the sleep-wake cycle, and psychological factors (e.g., personality) across the lifespan. In this field of study, the relationship between sleep (and sleep deprivation) and cognitive functions—such as prospective and retrospective memory—in individuals classified as good or poor sleepers, or in people with sleep disorders, is also explored.
The interest in timing is further examined by determining whether and how the light-dark cycle throughout the year and birth season can influence not only sleep quality and quantity but also personality traits and psychiatric syndromes (e.g., seasonal affective disorder) in children, adolescents, and adults. Finally, part of the scientific work is directed towards applied research (e.g., how the quality of a mattress affects the sleep-wake cycle) or the reliability of tools to ecologically assess subjective and objective sleep in specific populations.
In addition to this biological time, the way a person interacts with, represents, processes, and relates to time is also considered. One possible approach is to represent time using the metaphor of a mental timeline, where the past is associated with the left space and the future with the right. Parallel to this research interest, the study of the spatial characteristics of the mental representation of numbers has also been deepened, with particular attention to understanding how finger counting may influence this spatial representation.
