History

The Centre for Studies and Research in the Psychology of Communication was founded in 1996 by Luigi Anolli, of which he was also the first director. A pioneer of this discipline in Italy, Anolli has advanced his knowledge of non-verbal communication and discommunication, adopting a multidisciplinary approach based on the conviction, transmitted to his students, that the complexity of communication requires a gaze capable of including the different ways of understanding and modeling the phenomena that characterize it.

The heuristic effectiveness of this "integrated" approach is evidenced by the research of Rita Ciceri, who focused on the study of the vocal expression of human emotions and affections - a theme to which Father Gemelli himself had dedicated his latest research.

The research of Carlo Galimberti also moves in the name of transdisciplinary openness, who has deepened, in particular, the relationship between communication and conversation. One of the main outcomes of this work was the development of an integrated approach to the study of communicative interaction in face-to-face and mediated contexts called the "enunciative intersubjectivity model", which represents communication as an interactive event in which interlocutors actively collaborate in the production of meanings.

Attention to the relational dimension of communication was also the hallmark of Fabiana Gatti's contribution, who introduced this perspective in various application areas, ranging from the cultures of use of new technologies to the promotion of health and safety in the workplace. With the emergence of the Internet, the Centre has intensified its focus on the phenomena of mediated communication, activating several fruitful lines of research.

In this context, the contribution of Giuseppe Riva stands out, who focused on the development of the psychology of new media (or "cyberpsychology") as a specific discipline, analyzing in particular the role of new interactive technologies in the promotion of personal change.

In continuity with these proposals, Andrea Gaggioli has further elaborated the dialogue between the analysis of the communicative experience and the design of digital artifacts, contributing to the development of the "user experience" as an interdisciplinary area of research at the frontier between psychology, technology and design.