Roberto Limongi Ph.D
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
Senior Research Fellow
Robarts Research Institute, Room 1232C
rlimongi@uwo.ca

I am a Cognitive Scientist. My research program aims to answer the question of how writing activities change our minds. To reach this goal, I make use of behavioral, computational, and neurophysiological methods. I translate basic findings to the fields of neuropsychiatry and education. My program is theory driven with tight roots in Platonian, Cartesian, and Kantian philosophical systems. I summarize these three philosophical systems in my own perspective of Active Inference under the Free Energy Principle.

Memberships:
Cognitive Science Society

Basic Research
Theoretical Neurobiology, Experimental Psychology, and Natural Language Processing
I understand the relationship between the mind and the brain through the absolute truth of mathematics. The mind comprises a probabilistic model of the world --organized in concepts (Plato's forms) and is inmaterial. The brain, a material entity, also has a form that is in the mind itself. Therefore, everything we know about "neurophysiology" has a form in the mind. At an evolutionary scale, language separates us from other primates, and writing (a cultural invention) is the way through which we (I) discover the world and organize its forms in our (my) mind. Natural Language Processing and probabilistic models constrained by the covering assumptions of active inference (e.g., Markov blankets) are the basic tools I use to investigate how writing organizes our concepts in the mind.

Applied/Translational Research
Neuroscience and Education I translate my basic findings to optimize the most important tool for learning "writing" within the framework of epistemic writing. As an educator, I keep in mind that teachers are important stakeholders of cognitive science knowledge. Mobilizing this knowledge to schools is a primary goal of my program.

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2020-2022 John. R Hayes Award for Excellence in Writing Research
(Journal of Writing Research)
The John R. Hayes Award for excellence in writing research is granted biennially. This award($1000 and a 3D printed logo sculpture), aims at recognizing outstanding quantitative or qualitative empirical research in writing. The award is generoulsy funded by John R. Hayes himself. Professor Hayes (Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh) is one of the most influential writing researchers since 1980. He has been a pioneer in introducing cognitive psychology in writing research. Retrieved from https://www.jowr.org/index.php/jowr/award

Limongi, R., Silva, A. M, Mackinley, M., Ford, S., & Palaniyappan L. (In Press). Active inference, epistemic value, and uncertainty in conceptual disorganization in first episode schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin.(Corrected Proof, PDF)

     Silva, A. M ^Θ., Limongi, R ^Θ., MacKinley, M., Ford S. D., Sánchez, M. F***., & Palaniyappan, L. (2022). Syntactic complexity in the diagnosis of schizophrenia: a probabilistic Bayes network model. Schizophrenia Research https://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2022.06.011

^{ΘEqual contribution (co-first authors)}

Silva, A., Limongi, R., MacKinley, M., & Palaniyappan, L. (2021). Small Words That Matter: Linguistic Style and Conceptual Disorganisation in Untreated First Episode Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin Open. https://doi.org/10.1093/schizbullopen/sgab010

Limongi, R., Jeon, P**., Mackinley, M**., Das, T., Dempster, K., Théberge, J., . . . Palaniyappan, L. (2020). Glutamate and dysconnection in the salience network: neurochemical, effective connectivity, and computational evidence in schizophrenia. Biological psychiatry, 88(3), 273-281.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2020.01.021

       Silva, A. M^Θ**., & Limongi, R ^Θ. (2019). Writing to learn increases long-term memory consolidation: a mental-chronometry and computational-modeling study of “epistemic writing”. Journal of Writing Research, 11(1), 211-243.  https://doi.org/10.17239/jowr-2019.11.01.07

^{ΘEqual contribution (co-first authors)}

Limongi, R., Bohaterewicz, B**., Nowicka, M., Plewka, A*., & Friston, K. J. (2018). Knowing when to stop: aberrant precision and evidence accumulation in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2017.12.018

Complete List of Publications (October, 2022)

Psychology Honours Thesis

A Predictive Coding Model of Language Dysfunction in Early Psychosis (Joshua S. LeClair, 2021, PDF)

Neuroscience Honours Thesis

 Using Oculomotor Behavior as a Probe for     Aberrant Predictive Coding (Sameera Khalid, 2020, PDF)