Federico Frau is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Laboratory of Neurolinguistics and Experimental Pragmatics (NEP) of the University School for Advanced Studies IUSS Pavia, within the ERC Consolidator project “PROcessing MEtaphors: Neurochronometry, Acquisition and DEcay (PROMENADE; ID: 101045733; https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101045733), awarded to Prof. Valentina Bambini and funded by the European Research Council.

He obtained a Ph.D. degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind at the University School for Advanced Studies IUSS, defending a thesis on the role of multimodal experience during semantic and pragmatic processing in typical adults, as well as neurological and psychiatric conditions.

He graduated in Linguistic Sciences at the University of Turin, with a master’s degree thesis on linguistic and communicative impairment in Parkinson’s Disease, in collaboration with the Regional Centre for Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders of the University Hospital “City of Health and Science” of Turin. He’s also a former member of the Research Group on Inferential Processes in Social Interaction (GIPSI) of the Department of Psychology of the University of Turin (PI: Prof. Francesca M. Bosco), where he investigated the development and decay of pragmatic abilities from cognitive and clinical perspectives, encompassing the role of neurocognitive and sociocognitive skills. 

His current main research activities concern the involvement of multimodal semantic dimensions – including sensory-motor and bodily experience, also extending to aspects related to visual and motor imagery – in literal and figurative language processing, investigated via a combination of behavioral and neurophysiological (e.g., EEG recording) techniques in typical and atypical populations.