Paolo Canal
Paolo Canal (1980, Pordenone) holds a research position at the IUSS Center for NEurolinguisitcs and Theoretical Syntax since January 2014.

He got a Degree in Psychology at University of Padova (2006), and obtained a Ph.D in Neuroscience at University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (2010) with a dissertation investigating predictive mechanisms in the comprehension of frequently co-occurring literal and figurative sequences of words.

His research interests are mainly focused on the electrophysiological correlates of the cognitive mechanisms responsible for reading, with particular attention to how individual differences may affect reading processes.

During the Ph.D he carried out research at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and University of California Davis.

He was involved (2010-2012) in a Marie Curie Initial Training Network as Experienced researcher aiming at better understand the link between Language Cognition and Gender, during in which he carried out research at the Human Psychophysiology Lab at University of Sussex.


Selected publications
Books
Papers
  • Greco M., P. Canal, V. Bambini, A. Moro (2020) Modulating “Surprise” with Syntax: A Study on Negative Sentences and Eye-Movement Recording. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 49:415–434
  • Greco M., P. Canal, V. Bambini, A. Moro (2020) Expletive Negation: from syntax to eye-movements. In Proceedings of the Fifty-fifth Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, (eds.) O ̈mer Eren, Asimina Giannoula, Sam Gray, Chi-Dat Lam (Daniel), Aurora Martinez del Rio. pp.161-172. ISBN:978-0-914203-90-2; ISSN 0577-7240.
  • Bischetti L., P. Canal, V. Bambini (2020) Funny but aversive: A large-scale survey of the emotional response to Covid-19 humor in the Italian population during the lockdown. Lingua
  • Bambini V., P. Canal, D. Resta, M. Grimaldi (2019) Time-course and neurophysiological underpinnings of metaphor in literary context. Discourse Processes 56:77-97
  • Canal P., L. Bischetti, S. Di Paola, C. Bertini, I. Ricci, V. Bambini (2019) ‘Honey, shall I change the baby? – Well done, choose another one’: ERP and time-frequency correlates of humor processing. Brain and Cognition 132:41-55
  • Chesi C., P. Canal (2019) Person Features and Lexical Restrictions in Italian Clefts. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02105
  • Domaneschi F., P. Canal, V. Masia, E. Lombardi Vallauri, V. Bambini (2018) N400 and P600 modulation in presupposition accommodation: The effect of different trigger types. Journal of Neurolinguistics 45:13-35
  • Masia V., P. Canal, I. Ricci, E. Lombardi Vallauri, V. Bambini (2017) Presupposition of new information as a pragmatic garden path: Evidence from Event-Related Brain Potentials. Journal of Neurolinguistics 42:31-48
  • Chesi C., P. Canal (2017) Feature Retrieval Cost and on-line/off-line complexity in clefts. Proceedings of AMLAP, Architectures and Mechanisms of Language Processing. Lancaster, September 7-9 2017
  • Canal P. (2017) Basic composition and enriched integration in idiom processing: An EEG study.. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
  • Canal P., F. Pesciarelli, F. Vespignani, N. Molinaro, M. Caccia (2017) Basic composition and enriched integration in idiom processing: An EEG study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 43(6), 928
  • Canal P., A. Garnham, J. Oakhill (2015) Beyond Gender Stereotypes in Language Comprehension: Self Sex-Role Descriptions Affect the Brain’s Potentials Associated with Agreement Processing. Frontiers in Psychology
  • Molinaro N., P. Canal, F. Vespignani, F. Pesciarelli, C. Cacciari (2013) Are complex function words processed as semantically empty strings? A reading time and ERP study of Collocational Complex Prepositions. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28 (6), 762-788
  • Vespignani F., P. Canal, N. Molinaro, S. Fonda, C. Cacciari (2010) Predictive mechanisms in idiom comprehension. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22 (8), 1682-1700
  • Canal P., F. Vespignani, N. Molinaro, C. Cacciari (2010) Anticipatory mechanisms in idiom comprehension. Psycholinguistic and electrophysiological evidence. In Balconi, M., Neuropsychology of communication, Springer, Milan.
  • Molinaro N., F. Vespignani, P. Canal, S. Fonda, C. Cacciari (2008) Cloze- probability does not only affect N400 amplitude: The case of complex prepositions. Psychophysiology, 45, 1008-1012
  • Cacciari C., F. Vespignani, N. Molinaro, P. Canal, S. Fonda (2008) What electrophysiology reveals about the comprehension of multiword expressions: from syntax to semantics. In L. Arcuri, P. Boscolo & F., Peressotti (Eds.). Cognition and language: a long story. Festschrift in honour of Ino Flores d'Arcais. CLEUP, Padova