Caterina Villani

MY CV

I'm a cognitive psychologist working at the intersection of experimental linguistics, cognitive science, and human communication, with a focus on abstract language, categorization, and conversational interaction. I combine behavioral and psycholinguistic experimentation, corpus analysis, and computational methods to understand how speakers construct, negotiate, and transform word meaning in real-time interaction, balancing convention and creativity.

I'm currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at Ghent University, where I lead my own project on Joint meaning-making.

I hold a PhD in Cognitive Science from the University of Bologna (2022), supervised by Prof. Anna Borghi. My thesis investigated the conceptual representation and communicative effects of different subkinds of abstract concepts (e.g., joy, utopia, contract) in the framework of embodied and grounded cognition theories, and it received a Best PhD Thesis Award.

Before moving to Ghent, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the ERC-funded project ABSTRACTION at the University of Bologna (PI Prof. Marianna Bolognesi), and a Research Assistant at Freie Universität Berlin (Brain Language Laboratory).

I am particularly interested in how semantics influences the ebb and flow of conversational dynamics: how people reach mutual understanding (lexical alignment) and fix communication breakdowns (interactive repairs), and which cognitive-social skills support these processes. My research asks how we use language to make sense of the world together.

I'm a strong advocate of Open Science and passionate about making scientific knowledge accessible to a diverse audience.

News

01/10/2026 - I started a new postdoc at UGent!! I'll be working on my own project on joint meaning-making in conversation, and I'm excited to join the Department of Experimental Psychology and collaborate with an amazing team.
14/05/2025 - Honored that my PhD thesis won Second Prize (€3,000) in the Best PhD Thesis Award from the Department of Philosophy at UNIBO. Read it here. I hope it sparks curiosity and new ideas.

Codex Seraphinianus is an illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world written in an imaginary writing system invented by the Italian artist Luigi Serafini.

Concept is a fun board game: you guess words by combining visual icons. Some are a breeze; others... good luck! 😅 Try getting your friends to guess freedom with just a few icons and see what happens.

My favorite things for language nerds

PhD

Cognitive Sciences
University of Bologna

27/06/2022

MA

Philosophical Science
University of Bologna

17/03/2017

BA

Humanities, Philosophy
University of Siena

11/12/2013

Accademic Positions

Postdoctoral Researcher, Ghent University, Belgium
01/10/2026 – present
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Department of General and Applied Psychology (PP21)
Project: Joint meaning-making across linguistic and material modalities: Modeling the effect of abstractness on conversational and social dynamics (Special Research Fund: BOF/PDO/2026/138).

Promoters: Prof. Lara Bardi, Prof. Riccardo Fusaroli

Research Assistant, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
14/01/2026 – 30/09/2026
Brain Language Laboratory, Institute of German and Dutch Philology, Department of Philosophy and Humanities
Research Unit: Neurowissenschaft der Sprache und Pragmatik (Neuroscience of Language and Pragmatics)
Project: Communicative functions recognition conveyed by speech prosody: Categorization and pragmatic features

Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Bologna, Italy
01/09/2022 – 31/08/2025
Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, ERC-funded project ABSTRACTION (ERC-2021-STG-101039777).
Project: Specificity and Concreteness in the Human Mind.
Supervision: Prof. Marianna Bolognesi

Teaching Assistant, University of Bologna, Italy
a.a. 2021–2022
Department of Philosophy
Course: Psycholinguistics (BA and MA)

Research Fellow, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
01/01/2022 – 30/05/2022
Brain Language Laboratory
Projects: The time course of speech act recognition of questions and statements in Italian by speech prosody: A gating study; Interaction of gestural and verbal-semantic information in understanding different speech acts
Supervision: Prof. Dr. Dr. Friedemann Pulvermüller and Prof. Rosario Tomasello

Research Fellow, University of Bologna, Italy
31/10/2019 – 18/12/2019
Interdepartmental Center of History of Law, Philosophy and Sociology of Law, and Legal Informatics (CIRSFID)
Projects: ALMA IDEA 2017, Experimental theory of law: embodied cognition and perception of the juridical; RECOGNISE, Legal Reasoning & Cognitive Science (ERASMUS+)
Supervision: Prof. Corrado Roversi and Prof. Luisa Lugli

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