Language and Embodiment: sensory-motor and linguistic-social experience. Evidence on sentence comprehension

In this work I address the study of language comprehension in an “embodied” framework. Firstly I show behavioral evidence supporting the idea that language modulates the motor system in a specific way, both at a proximal level (sensibility to the effectors) and at the distal level (sensibility to the goal of the action in which the single motor acts are inserted). I will present two studies in which the method is basically the same: we manipulated the linguistic stimuli (the kind of sentence: hand action vs. foot action vs. mouth action) and the effector by which participants had to respond (hand vs. foot vs. mouth; dominant hand vs. non-dominant hand). Response times analyses showed a specific modulation depending on the kind of sentence: participants were facilitated in the task execution (sentence sensibility judgment) when the effector they had to use to respond was the same to which the sentences referred. Namely, during language comprehension a pre-activation of the motor system seems to take place. This activation is analogous (even if less intense) to the one detectable when we practically execute the action described by the sentence. Beyond this effector specific modulation, we also found an effect of the goal suggested by the sentence. That is, the hand effector was pre-activated not only by hand-action-related sentences, but also by sentences describing mouth actions, consistently with the fact that to execute an action on an object with the mouth we firstly have to bring it to the mouth with the hand. After reviewing the evidence on simulation specificity directly referring to the body (for instance, the kind of the effector activated by the language), I focus on the specific properties of the object to which the words refer, particularly on the weight. In this case the hypothesis to test was if both lifting movement perception and lifting movement execution are modulated by language comprehension. We used behavioral and kinematics methods, and we manipulated the linguistic stimuli (the kind of sentence: the lifting of heavy objects vs. the lifting of light objects). To study the movement perception we measured the correlations between the weight of the objects lifted by an actor (heavy objects vs. light objects) and the esteems provided by the participants. To study the movement execution we measured kinematics parameters variance (velocity, acceleration, time to the first peak of velocity) during the actual lifting of objects (heavy objects vs. light objects). Both kinds of measures revealed that language had a specific effect on the motor system, both at a perceptive and at a motoric level. Finally, I address the issue of the abstract words. Different studies in the “embodied” framework tried to explain the meaning of abstract words The limit of these works is that they account only for subsets of phenomena, so results are difficult to generalize. We tried to circumvent this problem by contrasting transitive verbs (abstract and concrete) and nouns (abstract and concrete) in different combinations. The behavioral study was conducted both with German and Italian participants, as the two languages are syntactically different. We found that response times were faster for both the compatible pairs (concrete verb + concrete noun; abstract verb + abstract noun) than for the mixed ones. Interestingly, for the mixed combinations analyses showed a modulation due to the specific language (German vs. Italian): when the concrete word precedes the abstract one responses were faster, regardless of the word grammatical class. Results are discussed in the framework of current views on abstract words. They highlight the important role of developmental and social aspects of language use, and confirm theories assigning a crucial role to both sensorimotor and linguistic experience for abstract words.

Max Bill in Italia . Lo spazio logico dell'architettura

I Max Bill is an intense giornata of a big fresco. An analysis of the main social, artistic and cultural events throughout the twentieth century is needed in order to trace his career through his masterpieces and architectures. Some of the faces of this hypothetical mural painting are, among others, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Ernesto Nathan Rogers, Kandinskij, Klee, Mondrian, Vatongerloo, Ignazio Silone, while the backcloth is given by artistic avant-gardes, Bauhaus, International Exhibitions, CIAM, war events, reconstruction, Milan Triennali, Venice Biennali, the School of Ulm. Architect, even though more known as painter, sculptor, designer and graphic artist, Max Bill attends the Bauhaus as a student in the years 1927-1929, and from this experience derives the main features of a rational, objective, constructive and non figurative art. His research is devoted to give his art a scientific methodology: each work proceeds from the analysis of a problem to the logical and always verifiable solution of the same problem. By means of composition elements (such as rhythm, seriality, theme and its variation, harmony and dissonance), he faces, with consistent results, themes apparently very distant from each other as the project for the H.f.G. or the design for a font. Mathematics are a constant reference frame as field of certainties, order, objectivity: ‘for Bill mathematics are never confined to a simple function: they represent a climate of spiritual certainties, and also the theme of non attempted in its purest state, objectivity of the sign and of the geometrical place, and at the same time restlessness of the infinity: Limited and Unlimited ’. In almost sixty years of activity, experiencing all artistic fields, Max Bill works, projects, designs, holds conferences and exhibitions in Europe, Asia and Americas, confronting himself with the most influencing personalities of the twentieth century. In such a vast scenery, the need to limit the investigation field combined with the necessity to address and analyse the unpublished and original aspect of Bill’s relations with Italy. The original contribution of the present research regards this particular ‘geographic delimitation’; in particular, beyond the deep cultural exchanges between Bill and a series of Milanese architects, most of all with Rogers, two main projects have been addressed: the realtà nuova at Milan Triennale in 1947, and the Contemporary Art Museum in Florence in 1980. It is important to note that these projects have not been previously investigated, and the former never appears in the sources either. These works, together with the most well-known ones, such as the projects for the VI and IX Triennale, and the Swiss pavilion for the Biennale, add important details to the reference frame of the relations which took place between Zurich and Milan. Most of the occasions for exchanges took part in between the Thirties and the Fifties, years during which Bill underwent a significant period of artistic growth. He meets the Swiss progressive architects and the Paris artists from the Abstraction-Création movement, enters the CIAM, collaborates with Le Corbusier to the third volume of his Complete Works, and in Milan he works and gets confronted with the events related to post-war reconstruction. In these years Bill defines his own working methodology, attaining an artistic maturity in his work. The present research investigates the mentioned time period, despite some necessary exceptions. II The official Max Bill bibliography is naturally wide, including spreading works along with ones more devoted to analytical investigation, mainly written in German and often translated into French and English (Max Bill himself published his works in three languages). Few works have been published in Italian and, excluding the catalogue of the Parma exhibition from 1977, they cannot be considered comprehensive. Many publications are exhibition catalogues, some of which include essays written by Max Bill himself, some others bring Bill’s comments in a educational-pedagogical approach, to accompany the observer towards a full understanding of the composition processes of his art works. Bill also left a great amount of theoretical speculations to encourage a critical reading of his works in the form of books edited or written by him, and essays published in ‘Werk’, magazine of the Swiss Werkbund, and other international reviews, among which Domus and Casabella. These three reviews have been important tools of analysis, since they include tracks of some of Max Bill’s architectural works. The architectural aspect is less investigated than the plastic and pictorial ones in all the main reference manuals on the subject: Benevolo, Tafuri and Dal Co, Frampton, Allenspach consider Max Bill as an artist proceeding in his work from Bauhaus in the Ulm experience . A first filing of his works was published in 2004 in the monographic issue of the Spanish magazine 2G, together with critical essays by Karin Gimmi, Stanislaus von Moos, Arthur Rüegg and Hans Frei, and in ‘Konkrete Architektur?’, again by Hans Frei. Moreover, the monographic essay on the Atelier Haus building by Arthur Rüegg from 1997, and the DPA 17 issue of the Catalonia Polytechnic with contributions of Carlos Martì, Bruno Reichlin and Ton Salvadò, the latter publication concentrating on a few Bill’s themes and architectures. An urge to studying and going in depth in Max Bill’s works was marked in 2008 by the centenary of his birth and by a recent rediscovery of Bill as initiator of the ‘minimalist’ tradition in Swiss architecture. Bill’s heirs are both very active in promoting exhibitions, researching and publishing. Jakob Bill, Max Bill’s son and painter himself, recently published a work on Bill’s experience in Bauhaus, and earlier on he had published an in-depth study on ‘Endless Ribbons’ sculptures. Angela Thomas Schmid, Bill’s wife and art historian, published in end 2008 the first volume of a biography on Max Bill and, together with the film maker Eric Schmid, produced a documentary film which was also presented at the last Locarno Film Festival. Both biography and documentary concentrate on Max Bill’s political involvement, from antifascism and 1968 protest movements to Bill experiences as Zurich Municipality councilman and member of the Swiss Confederation Parliament. In the present research, the bibliography includes also direct sources, such as interviews and original materials in the form of letters correspondence and graphic works together with related essays, kept in the max+binia+jakob bill stiftung archive in Zurich. III The results of the present research are organized into four main chapters, each of them subdivided into four parts. The first chapter concentrates on the research field, reasons, tools and methodologies employed, whereas the second one consists of a short biographical note organized by topics, introducing the subject of the research. The third chapter, which includes unpublished events, traces the historical and cultural frame with particular reference to the relations between Max Bill and the Italian scene, especially Milan and the architects Rogers and Baldessari around the Fifties, searching the themes and the keys for interpretation of Bill’s architectures and investigating the critical debate on the reviews and the plastic survey through sculpture. The fourth and last chapter examines four main architectures chosen on a geographical basis, all devoted to exhibition spaces, investigating Max Bill’s composition process related to the pictorial field. Paintings has surely been easier and faster to investigate and verify than the building field. A doctoral thesis discussed in Lausanne in 1977 investigating Max Bill’s plastic and pictorial works, provided a series of devices which were corrected and adapted for the definition of the interpretation grid for the composition structures of Bill’s main architectures. Four different tools are employed in the investigation of each work: a context analysis related to chapter three results; a specific theoretical essay by Max Bill briefly explaining his main theses, even though not directly linked to the very same work of art considered; the interpretation grid for the composition themes derived from a related pictorial work; the architecture drawing and digital three-dimensional model. The double analysis of the architectural and pictorial fields is functional to underlining the relation among the different elements of the composition process; the two fields, however, cannot be compared and they stay, in Max Bill’s works as in the present research, interdependent though self-sufficient. IV An important aspect of Max Bill production is self-referentiality: talking of Max Bill, also through Max Bill, as a need for coherence instead of a method limitation. Ernesto Nathan Rogers describes Bill as the last humanist, and his horizon is the known world but, as the ‘Concrete Art’ of which he is one of the main representatives, his production justifies itself: Max Bill not only found a method, but he autonomously re-wrote the ‘rules of the game’, derived timeless theoretical principles and verified them through a rich and interdisciplinary artistic production. The most recurrent words in the present research work are synthesis, unity, space and logic. These terms are part of Max Bill’s vocabulary and can be referred to his works. Similarly, graphic settings or analytical schemes in this research text referring to or commenting Bill’s architectural projects were drawn up keeping in mind the concise precision of his architectural design. As for Mies van der Rohe, it has been written that Max Bill took art to ‘zero degree’ reaching in this way a high complexity. His works are a synthesis of art: they conceptually encompass all previous and –considered their developments- most of contemporary pictures. Contents and message are generally explicitly declared in the title or in Bill’s essays on his artistic works and architectural projects: the beneficiary is invited to go through and re-build the process of synthesis generating the shape. In the course of the interview with the Milan artist Getulio Alviani, he tells how he would not write more than a page for an essay on Josef Albers: everything was already evident ‘on the surface’ and any additional sentence would be redundant. Two years after that interview, these pages attempt to decompose and single out the elements and processes connected with some of Max Bill’s works which, for their own origin, already contain all possible explanations and interpretations. The formal reduction in favour of contents maximization is, perhaps, Max Bill’s main lesson.

The language of action. How language translates the dynamics of our actions.

The general aim of the thesis was to investigate how and to what extent the characteristics of action organization are reflected in language, and how they influence language processing and understanding. Even though a huge amount of research has been devoted to the study of the motor effects of language, this issue is very debated in literature. Namely, the majority of the studies have focused on low-level motor effects such as effector-relatedness of action, whereas only a few studies have started to systematically investigate how specific aspects of action organization are encoded and reflected in language. After a review of previous studies on the relationship between language comprehension and action (chapter 1) and a critical discussion of some of them (chapter 2), the thesis is composed by three experimental chapters, each devoted to a specific aspect of action organization. Chapter 3 presents a study designed with the aim to disentangle the effective time course of the involvement of the motor system during language processing. Three kinematics experiments were designed in order to determine whether and, at which stage of motor planning and execution effector-related action verbs influence actions executed with either the same or a different effector. Results demonstrate that the goal of an action can be linguistically re-activated, producing a modulation of the motor response. In chapter 4, a second study investigates the interplay between the role of motor perspective (agent) and the organization of action in motor chains. More specifically, this kinematics study aims at deepening how goal can be translated in language, using as stimuli simple sentences composed by a pronoun (I, You, He/She) and a verb. Results showed that the perspective activated by the pronoun You reflects the motor pattern of the “agent” combined with the chain structure of the verb. These data confirm an early involvement of the motor system in language processing, suggesting that it is specifically modulated by the activation of the agent’s perspective. In chapter 5, the issue of perspective is specifically investigated, focusing on its role in language comprehension. In particular, this study aimed at determining how a specific perspective (induced for example by a personal pronoun) modulates motor behaviour during and after language processing. A classical compatibility effect (the Action-sentence compatibility effect) has been used to this aim. In three behavioural experiments the authors investigated how the ACE is modulated by taking first or third person perspective. Results from these experiments showed that the ACE effect occurs only when a first-person perspective is activated by the sentences used as stimuli. Overall, the data from this thesis contributed to disentangle several aspects of how action organization is translated in language, and then reactivated during language processing. This constitutes a new contribution to the field, adding lacking information on how specific aspects such as goal and perspective are linguistically described. In addition, these studies offer a new point of view to understand the functional implications of the involvement of the motor system during language comprehension, specifically from the point of view of our social interactions.

La responsabilità civile da prodotto farmaceutico

Il tema della ricerca ha riguardato preliminarmente la definizione di farmaco descritta nel d.lgs. n. 219 del 2006 (Codice dei farmaci per uso umano). Oltre al danno prodotto da farmaci, la ricerca ha approfondito anche la tutela ex ante ed ex post riguardante la produzione di dispositivi medici (Direttiva della Comunità Economica Europea n. 42 del 1993 e Direttiva della Comunità Economica Europea n. 374 del 1985). E’ stato necessario soffermarsi sull’analisi del concetto di precauzione per il quale nell’ambito di attività produttive, come quelle che cagionano inquinamento ambientale, o “pericolose per la salute umana” come quelle riguardanti la produzione di alimenti e farmaci, è necessario eliminare i rischi non conosciuti nella produzione di questi ultimi al fine di garantire una tutela completa della salute. L’analisi della Direttiva della Comunità Economica Europea n. 374 del 1985 nei suoi aspetti innovativi ha riguardato l’esame dei casi di danno da farmaco (Trib. Roma, 20 Giugno 2002, Trib. Roma 27 Giugno 1987, Trib. Milano 19 Novembre 1987, Cassazione Civile n. 6241 del 1987): profilo critico è quello riguardante la prova liberatoria, mentre l'art. 2050 prevede che «si debbano adottare tutte le misure necessarie per evitare il danno», l'art. 118, lett. e), c. cons.) prevede una serie di casi di esonero di responsabilità del produttore (tra cui il rischio di sviluppo). Dall'analisi emerge poi la necessità da parte del produttore di continuo utilizzo del duty to warn (Art. 117 del Codice del Consumo lett. A e B ): esso consiste nel dovere continuo di informazione del produttore tramite i suoi rappresentanti e il bugiardino presente nelle confezioni dei farmaci. Tale dovere è ancor più importante nel caso della farmacogenetica, infatti, al fine di evitare reazioni avverse nel bugiardino di alcuni farmaci verrà prescritta la necessità di effettuare un test genetico prima dell’assunzione.

Semantic under-determinacy, Content and Context

The aim of the thesis is to investigate the topic of semantic under-determinacy, i.e. the failure of the semantic content of certain expressions to determine a truth-evaluable utterance content. In the first part of the thesis, I engage with the problem of setting apart semantic under-determinacy as opposed to other phenomena such as ambiguity, vagueness, indexicality. As I will argue, the feature that distinguishes semantic under-determinacy from these phenomena is its being explainable solely in terms of under-articulation. In the second part of the thesis, I discuss the topic of how communication is possible, despite the semantic under-determinacy of language. I discuss a number of answers that have been offered: (i) the Radical Contextualist explanation which emphasises the role of pragmatic processes in utterance comprehension; (ii) the Indexicalist explanation in terms of hidden syntactic positions; (iii) the Relativist account, which regards sentences as true or false relative to extra coordinates in the circumstances of evaluation (besides possible worlds). In the final chapter, I propose an account of the comprehension of utterances of semantically under-determined sentences in terms of conceptual constraints, i.e. ways of organising information which regulate thought and discourse on certain matters. Conceptual constraints help the hearer to work out the truth-conditions of an utterance of a semantically under-determined sentence. Their role is clearly semantic, in that they contribute to “what is said” (rather than to “what is implied”); however, they do not respond to any syntactic constraint. The view I propose therefore differs, on the one hand, from Radical Contextualism, because it stresses the role of semantic-governed processes as opposed to pragmatics-governed processes; on the other hand, it differs from Indexicalism in its not endorsing any commitment as to hidden syntactic positions; and it differs from Relativism in that it maintains a monadic notion if truth.

L'utililizzo delle ICT nel processo penale

Il progetto di ricerca si situa nell’ambito dell’informatica giudiziaria settore che studia i sistemi informativi implementati negli uffici giudiziari allo scopo di migliorare l’efficienza del servizio, fornire una leva per la riduzione dei lunghi tempi processuali, al fine ultimo di garantire al meglio i diritti riconosciuti ai cittadini e accrescere la competitività del Paese. Oggetto di studio specifico del progetto di ricerca è l’utilizzo delle ICT nel processo penale. Si tratta di una realtà meno studiata rispetto al processo civile, eppure la crisi di efficienza del processo non è meno sentita in tale area: l’arretrato da smaltire al 30 giugno del 2011 è stato quantificato in 3,4 milioni di processi penali, e il tempo medio di definizione degli stessi è di quattro anni e nove mesi. Guardare al processo penale con gli occhi della progettazione dei sistemi informativi è vedere un fluire ininterrotto di informazioni che include realtà collocate a monte e a valle del processo stesso: dalla trasmissione della notizia di reato alla esecuzione della pena. In questa prospettiva diventa evidente l’importanza di una corretta gestione delle informazioni: la quantità, l’accuratezza, la rapidità di accesso alle stesse sono fattori così cruciali per il processo penale che l’efficienza del sistema informativo e la qualità della giustizia erogata sono fortemente interrelate. Il progetto di ricerca è orientato a individuare quali siano le condizioni in cui l’efficienza può essere effettivamente raggiunta e, soprattutto, a verificare quali siano le scelte tecnologiche che possono preservare, o anche potenziare, i principi e le garanzie del processo penale. Nel processo penale, infatti, sono coinvolti diritti fondamentali dell’individuo quali la libertà personale, la dignità, la riservatezza, diritti fondamentali che vengono tutelati attraverso un ampia gamma di diritti processuali quali la presunzione di innocenza, il diritto di difesa, il diritto al contraddittorio, la finalità di rieducazione della pena.

Antipodal random sequences with prescribed second-order statistics: application to Compressive Sensing and UWB system based on DS-CDMA

It is usual to hear a strange short sentence: «Random is better than...». Why is randomness a good solution to a certain engineering problem? There are many possible answers, and all of them are related to the considered topic. In this thesis I will discuss about two crucial topics that take advantage by randomizing some waveforms involved in signals manipulations. In particular, advantages are guaranteed by shaping the second order statistic of antipodal sequences involved in an intermediate signal processing stages. The first topic is in the area of analog-to-digital conversion, and it is named Compressive Sensing (CS). CS is a novel paradigm in signal processing that tries to merge signal acquisition and compression at the same time. Consequently it allows to direct acquire a signal in a compressed form. In this thesis, after an ample description of the CS methodology and its related architectures, I will present a new approach that tries to achieve high compression by design the second order statistics of a set of additional waveforms involved in the signal acquisition/compression stage. The second topic addressed in this thesis is in the area of communication system, in particular I focused the attention on ultra-wideband (UWB) systems. An option to produce and decode UWB signals is direct-sequence spreading with multiple access based on code division (DS-CDMA). Focusing on this methodology, I will address the coexistence of a DS-CDMA system with a narrowband interferer. To do so, I minimize the joint effect of both multiple access (MAI) and narrowband (NBI) interference on a simple matched filter receiver. I will show that, when spreading sequence statistical properties are suitably designed, performance improvements are possible with respect to a system exploiting chaos-based sequences minimizing MAI only.

Il rogo degli eretici nel Medioevo

Il presente lavoro mette in luce i diversi aspetti che ruotano intorno all’istituzione del rogo, cioè la condanna di un eretico alle fiamme e la conseguente morte per vivicombustione, che arrivò a imporsi nella procedura inquisitoriale come punizione ultima e unica nei casi di eresia. La prima parte del lavoro è dedicata ai fondamenti giuridici che caratterizzano questa pena. L’attenzione è rivolta poi alla letteratura controversistica di parte cattolica, usata dalla Chiesa a difesa della legittima occisio degli eretici. La parte centrale dello studio riguarda l’aspetto storico con una recensio dei principali roghi avvenuti prima e dopo la nascita dell’Inquisizione. Infine la riflessione si sposta sulla scelta e il significato di tale pena da un punto di vista antropologico.

Inadempimento e ripartizione dell'onere probatorio

L'interesse per il tema dell'onere della prova nell'inadempimento contrattuale è giustificato dalla circostanza che il noto intervento delle Sezioni Unite in materia, al quale originariamente si è pensato di attribuire una portata indifferenziata e assoluta, non ha avuto l'effetto di porre fine ai numerosi contrasti interpretativi. Al contrario, lo stesso ha determinato il sorgere di nuove incertezze e profili problematici, subendo, peraltro, continue smentite in diversi settori della responsabilità civile. Lo scopo della presente indagine è stato quello di verificare in quali contesti la regola fissata dalla Cassazione venisse applicata e in quali disattesa, procedendo, quindi, ad accertare la modulazione dell'onere della prova in alcuni settori considerati emblematici. Si è, così, tentato di individuare le ragioni della limitazione dell'indirizzo in parola, nonché i criteri in base ai quali determinare l'allocazione dell'onere della prova.

"Orationi al cepo overo a la scala": le laude della Confraternita bolognese di S. Maria della morte

La Confraternita bolognese di S. Maria della Morte, istituita nel 1336 sull’onda della predicazione del frate domenicano Venturino da Bergamo, è la più antica e meglio documentata compagnia italiana ‘di giustizia’. Possedeva un laudario conosciuto attraverso 12 manoscritti redatti tra XV e XVI secolo, dove le laude seguono il “confortatorio” che insegnava ai confratelli come relazionarsi col condannato e prepararlo a morire in perfetto spirito cristiano. Nelle laude l’identificazione poetica tra Cristo e il condannato era funzionale allo scopo di convertire il criminale in santo, convincendolo che la sua morte aveva una funzione redentrice per sé e la città stessa. L’assoluzione plenaria poteva essere ottenuta solo tramite una morte completamente accettata e un pentimento sincero. La dissertazione indaga le tematiche espresse dalle laude e le motivazioni forti che spingevano i confortatori a intraprendere questa peculiare attività assistenziale.