36 months
Integrated delivery horizon
Three years with milestone-driven oversight
PRIN 2026 Research Dossier
NIGHT
Neurocognitive Investigation of how Humans Grasp Technologies
A research agenda seeking to define how the human brain enables the comprehension, manipulation, and cultural transmission of technologies.
Duration
36 months
ERC Domains
SH4 The Human Mind and Its Complexity
Operational units
4
Core facilities
4
Flagship experiments
4
Project at a Glance
Immediate orientation for scientific, operational, and evaluative review.
5 units
An interdisciplinary national consortium
Operational roles mapped to experiments and outputs
4 platforms
Core facilities in continuous use
Behavioural, eye-tracking, HD-EEG, and neuroimaging pipelines
12 outputs
Planned scientific and translational deliverables
Protocols, datasets, papers, and open resources
Consortium budget
EUR 920,000
Committed person-months
132
Planned participant observations
396
Research Logic
The scientific narrative is organised as evidence, not ornament.
Why This Project, Why Now
Open research logic
A missing account of how humans reason about technology
The project addresses a gap between cognitive theories of tool use and the rapidly changing reality of digital, hybrid, and distributed technologies.
Current research explains fragments of technological behaviour, yet lacks a unified account of how people build causal models of tools, transfer know-how between physical and digital settings, and adapt when technologies become collaborative, opaque, or algorithmically mediated.
TECHNE positions this question at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology, and computational modelling. It asks how technological reasoning is represented, which neural systems sustain it, and how it can be measured across ecologically meaningful tasks.
Scientific Logic
Inspect experiments
Four objectives connect theory, methods, and measurable outputs
The scientific programme is structured as a chain from theoretical specification to experimentation, modelling, and translational release.
- Objective 1. Define the cognitive architecture of technological reasoning across physical and digital tools.
- Objective 2. Identify behavioural and neural markers of transfer, adaptation, and failure in complex tool-mediated tasks.
- Objective 3. Model cross-unit evidence using shared protocols, harmonised datasets, and comparative pipelines.
- Objective 4. Deliver reusable experimental assets, open materials, and policy-facing outputs for research and training.
Each objective is tied to specific experiments, facilities, milestones, and measurable outputs, reducing ambiguity around feasibility and expected contribution.
Governance and Feasibility
See the timeline
Coordination is designed as an operational research office, not a symbolic layer
Leadership, risk review, ethics, data stewardship, and timeline management are embedded in the work plan.
The coordinating unit manages a shared protocol calendar, a quarterly steering cycle, milestone reviews, and quality checks on data, preregistration, and recruitment progress. Unit leaders participate in monthly implementation meetings and structured decision gates at each major milestone.
Risk mitigation is tracked at the experiment and work-package level, with escalation paths for recruitment delays, equipment access, and protocol drift. This governance model is designed to reduce operational uncertainty while preserving scientific agility.
Open Science and Legacy
Review impacts
Impact is framed as scientific gain, methodological reuse, and territorial capacity building
The project is not only expected to publish; it is expected to leave behind reusable scientific infrastructure.
TECHNE will release protocol packages, harmonised metadata standards, curated experimental materials, analysis templates, and dissemination assets. The objective is to improve reproducibility and enable later work across cognitive neuroscience, educational technology, and human-technology interaction.
Public-facing outputs are complemented by training activity, cross-unit mentoring, and targeted dissemination for academic, clinical, and territorial stakeholders.
Units and Complementarity
Each unit has a visible operational role, resource footprint, and research contribution.
Unit 01. Coordinating Unit for Behavioural and Translational Cognition
Università Suor Orsola Benincasa · Naples, Italy
Lead: Giovanni Federico, PhD
Expertise
Unit footprint
- EUR 285,000 budget
- 42 person-months
- 1 facility
- 1 linked experiment
Unit 02. Neuroimaging and Connectomics Core
University of Padua · Padua, Italy
Lead: Associated PI
This unit brings MRI-informed modelling, structural connectivity estimation, and cross-modal integration to the programme. Its role is to connect behavioural signatures of technological reasoning with neurobiological constraints and individual-difference structure.
Expertise
- fMRI-informed modelling
- Structural connectivity and lesion-informed inference
- Cross-modal harmonisation pipelines
Unit footprint
- EUR 235,000 budget
- 34 person-months
- 1 facility
- 1 linked experiment
Facility profile
3T MRI access, connectivity processing pipelines, reproducible analysis workstations, and advanced statistical support.
Unit 03. HD-EEG and Neural Dynamics Laboratory
University of Bologna · Bologna, Italy
Lead: Associated PI
This unit measures the fast temporal structure of technological reasoning, focusing on planning, monitoring, and error recovery during tool-mediated tasks. It strengthens the proposal by making dynamic evidence directly comparable across experiments.
Expertise
- High-density EEG acquisition and analysis
- Error monitoring and adaptive control
- Multimodal integration with behavioural markers
Unit footprint
- EUR 210,000 budget
- 30 person-months
- 1 facility
- 1 linked experiment
Facility profile
256-channel HD-EEG, synchronised stimulus control, behavioural logging, and protocol quality assurance.
Unit 04. Computational Modelling and Open Infrastructure
Sapienza University of Rome · Rome, Italy
Lead: Associated PI
The modelling unit operationalises project-wide inference, builds shared data standards, and produces open analytical resources that make the consortium outputs reusable after project completion.
Expertise
- Bayesian and comparative modelling
- Open-science infrastructure
- Reusable software and metadata standards
Unit footprint
- EUR 190,000 budget
- 26 person-months
- 1 facility
- 1 linked experiment
Facility profile
Secure compute, version-controlled pipelines, harmonised repositories, and dissemination-oriented documentation.
Facilities and Infrastructure
Infrastructure is presented as enabling capacity with clear methodological value.
Behavioural platform
Behavioural and Eye-Tracking Suite
Naples
A flexible suite for causal inference, tool-use simulation, and multimodal response capture, designed to support tightly controlled behavioural protocols and ecologically rich tasks.
- High-precision eye-tracking
- Rapid task prototyping
- Integrated behavioural logging
Imaging facility
MRI and Connectomics Platform
Padua
The imaging platform supports structural and functional inference related to technological reasoning, transfer, and network-level organisation.
- 3T MRI access
- Connectivity estimation
- Cross-modal data fusion
Electrophysiology
HD-EEG Core Facility
Bologna
An advanced electrophysiology core for capturing rapid planning, monitoring, and adaptation signals during complex task execution.
- 256-channel acquisition
- Time-frequency analysis
- Performance-linked event coding
Computational infrastructure
Open Modelling and Data Backbone
Rome
A project-wide infrastructure for harmonised datasets, model comparison, reproducible pipelines, and release-ready resources.
- Reproducible compute environment
- Metadata governance
- Reusable analysis templates
Experiments
Methodological seriousness is made legible through questions, methods, timing, and outputs.
EXP-01
M2-M10 · Q1-Q4
How do participants construct causal models when tool affordances are visible, hidden, or algorithmically mediated?
This experiment compares physical-tool, hybrid-tool, and interface-based tasks to identify where transfer succeeds and where reasoning collapses. The design creates a common behavioural backbone for the full project.
EXP-02
M7-M18 · Q3-Q6
Which neurobiological systems support abstraction from specific tool interactions to general technological structure?
This stream connects behavioural measures to neuroimaging-informed modelling, focusing on abstraction, planning, and domain transfer.
EXP-03
M13-M23 · Q5-Q8
Which temporal markers predict successful adaptation when technological plans fail or must be revised?
The HD-EEG stream examines rapid monitoring and recovery under increasing technological complexity, linking behavioural disruptions to temporally precise neural signatures.
EXP-04
M17-M31 · Q6-Q11
How can heterogeneous evidence be integrated into reusable models of technological reasoning and transfer?
This stream integrates behavioural, imaging, and electrophysiological evidence into reusable models and project-wide dissemination assets.
Timeline and Delivery Evidence
A reviewer-grade plan linking work packages, deadlines, and milestone review points.
Project Schedule
4 work packages are visualised directly from relative project months and quarters.
4 scheduled
0 pending
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q5
Q6
Q7
Q8
Q9
Q10
Q11
Q12
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
M10
M11
M12
M13
M14
M15
M16
M17
M18
M19
M20
M21
M22
M23
M24
M25
M26
M27
M28
M29
M30
M31
M32
M33
M34
M35
M36
Automatic Figures
Charts are generated from structured project records, not manually redrawn.
Impact Pathways
Scientific, societal, territorial, and open-science value are articulated separately.
A unified account of technological reasoning
The project integrates behavioural, neural, and computational evidence into a coherent explanation of how people reason about tools and technology.
4
Integrated empirical streams
Transferable evidence for training and human-technology adaptation
Outputs will inform educational and applied contexts where technological understanding, error monitoring, and adaptive planning matter.
3
Target stakeholder clusters
Infrastructure growth across the national research network
The project builds interoperable methods and assets that strengthen capacity across participating sites and beyond.
4
Sites aligned through shared standards
Reusable protocols, datasets, and release-ready pipelines
TECHNE is designed to leave behind a tangible methodological legacy that can be inspected, reused, and extended.
12
Planned public-facing outputs
Project Updates
Operational signals and delivery checkpoints.
Review-ready platform scaffold initialised
The dossier has been configured to expose project logic, facilities, experiments, impacts, and editable evidence blocks in a reviewer-oriented structure.
Cross-unit protocol handbook drafted
A unified protocol handbook aligns terminology, metadata rules, and reporting standards across all operational units.
FAQ
Quick answers for reviewers and project editors.
Yes. The admin panel supports structured editing of narrative sections, units, facilities, experiments, work packages, milestones, impacts, gallery content, updates, and general project metadata.
Yes. Charts are generated from database records such as unit budgets, person-months, work-package dates, and experiment sample sizes.
Yes. Each major content type includes an image field with upload support and live preview within the admin panel.