Dipartimento di Psicologia - Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore - UC (Assistant Contractor - Italy - Associated to Partner 1)     Contact person for the project: Prof. Galimberti Carlo.     The role of the Università Cattolica (Department of Psychology) in the Consortium is to offer the ergonomic contents required for the development of the VR modules. In particular the Università Cattolica: - will assist the consortium in addressing the ergonomic issues related to the development of the VR modules; - will verify the changes induced by the Anxiety Disorders Module (Social Phobia) on the patient/therapist relationship. In particular the analysis will be focused on the communicative and emotional processes; - will help Istituto Auxologico Italiano in the definition of the rationale of the Eating Disorders module. The Dipartimento di Psicologia has a long and notable history of research in the areas of perception and social psychology. Significant contributions have been made over the past fifty years (the Dipartimento di Psicologia was the first psychology department established in Italy) by Padre Gemelli, Padre Zunini e Prof. Girotti. More recently this work has been added to by the likes of Prof. Quadrio Aristarchi and Prof. Dogana. In the Dipartimento di Psicologia the Virtual Reality research is carried out by GRICO - Gruppo di Ricerca sull'Interazione Comunicativa (Communicative Interaction Research Group) and by CSRPC - Centro Studi e Ricerche di Psicologia della Comunicazione (Centre for Studies and Research in Communication   Psychology).       GRICO developed out of the interests of a group of researchers and professors active in psychosocial and cognitive studies. Its main concerns are: - effects of virtual reality on perception: In particular on body image and body perceptions - forms of communicative interaction: discourse production with special reference to conversation: text and hypertext production - communicative interaction and new communication technologies: hypertext; multimedia technology; virtual reality; communication networks; new uses of the telephone - classic social psychology problems and new theoretical and methodological paradigms. CSRPC, founded in 1993 and headed by L. Anolli, Full Professor of Communication Psychology at the Catholic University of Milan, has historically been one of the first involved in the development of implicit and non-verbal communication research in Italy. - Main goal of the center is the study of the different aspects of communication - semiotics, pragmatics and semantics - with a specific interest for miscommunication and implicit communication (deceptive, ironic and metaphoric).The focus of this research area concerned mainly the links between communication, self and culture, the study of identity and interactive games. - A second research line concerned new media and new communication technologies. Particularly, the research involved the different psycho-social and cultural issues of computer mediated communication, including Internet and immersive virtual environments. Head of the Catholic University of Milan Unit is C. Galimberti, Professor of Social Psychology at the Catholic University of Milan.     Recent papers     Anolli, L., Ciceri, R. The Voice of Deception: Vocal Strategies of Naive and Able Liars, Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 1997, 21, pp. 259-284. Anolli, L., Ciceri, R., Infantino, M.G. Irony as a game of implicitness: Acoustic profiles of ironic communication, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 29, 2000, pp. 275-311. Anolli, L., Antonietti, A., Crisafulli, L., Cantoia, M. Accessing source information in analogical problem solving, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Section A: Human Experimental Psychology, in press. Riva G, Galimberti C., Interbrain frame: interaction and cognition in computer-mediated communication. CyberPsychology & Behavior (1998); 1: 295-310. Riva G, Galimberti C., The psychology of cyberspace: a socio-cognitive framework to computer mediated communication, New Ideas in Psychology (1997), 15: 141-158. Riva G, Galimberti C., Computer-mediated communication: identity and social interaction in an electronic environment, Genetic, Social and General Psychology Monographs (1998), 124: 434-464.