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Dr. Claudia Mazzuca

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  • 2020 · PhD in Cognitive Science, University of Bologna, Supervisor: Roberto Nicoletti

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  • 2018 · Visiting PhD student, University of Nijmegen, Supervisor: Asifa Majid

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  • 2019 - 2020 · Research Associate, University of York, Supervisor: Asifa Majid

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  • 2021 - · Postdoctoral Researcher, Sapienza University, Supervisor: Anna Borghi

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Professional service

  • 2021 – 2024 · Governing Board Member Italian Reproducibility Network

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  • 2025 - · Vice President Italian Association of Cognitive Science

claudia.mazzuca@uniroma1.it

My Academic Path

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My Research Interests

CONCEPTUAL VARIABILITY

  • Individual level: individual experiences (e.g., gender identity) and expertise (e.g., education or scientific background)

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  • Collective level: language/linguistic interactions and culture

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Behavioural (e.g., RTs; categorisation tasks; sorting tasks) and psycholinguistic (e.g., free-listing, ratings) methods

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Dyads drawing pictionary task (WP1)

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Target stimuli: abstract vs concrete concepts repeated within each session

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  • N. of turns to converge on a shared symbol system;
  • Objective measure of drawings’ similarity
  • External drawings’ similarity ratings;
  • Confidence measures

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(WP5)

Cross-linguistic

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Borghi, A. M., Mazzuca, C., & Tummolini, L. (2025). The role of social interaction in the formation and use of abstract concepts. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1-14.

Mazzuca, C., De Livio, C., Mirabella, M., Giovanardi, G., Borghi, A.M. (in press). Norms for Gender-Inclusive Role Nouns in Italian: The GIRN-I Database. Behavior Research Methods

Mazzuca, C., Villani, C*., Lamarra, T., Bolognesi, M. M., & Borghi, A. M. (2025). Abstractness impacts conversational dynamics. Cognition, 258, 106084.

Mazzuca, C., Arcovito, M., Falcinelli, I., Fini, C., & Borghi, A. M. (2025). Water Is and Is Not H2O, Depending on Who You Ask: Conceptualizations of Water Vary Across Chemists and Laypeople. Cognitive Science, 49(8), e70094.

Mazzuca, C., Borghi, A.M., van Putten, S., Lugli, L., Nicoletti, R. & Majid, A. (2024). Gender is conceptualized in different ways across cultures. Language and Cognition, 16(2), 1-27. doi: 10.1017/langcog.2023.40.

Key related publications