Luca Bonatti

Luca Bonatti

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Social & Behavioural Sciences

I graduated in Philosophy at the University of Milan, Italy, and received my PhD in Philosophy of Mind at Rutgers, N.J.. I have been a member of the Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, Paris, where I learned the little experimental psychology I know of, thanks to the help of friends and colleagues. I then entered the University of Paris 8, France as an associate professor. I moved to Italy at SISSA, Trieste, then to the University of Nantes, France, as a full professor, and finally to Barcelona, at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, as an ICREA professor. I have also been visiting professor at the University of Budapest, Hungary, at the University of the Balearic Islands, Spain, and at New York University.


Research interests

I am fascinated by thinking, by the very fact that we conceive structured states of mind that can be true or false, that can be imaginary or real. I am fascinated by how pervasively thinking populates our mental life. We reason when we read, or when we speak, but also when we walk around, or when we dream. Indeed, thinking is at the roots of the unique cognitive place humans have in the animal kingdom. I investigate its early structure, finding ways to describe the potential primitives of the scaffoldings supporting the combinatorial structure of human thought. I try to reveal bits and pieces of the representations underlying our abilities to come to conclusions, to form expectations, or to find what happens next. When time allows, I also work on how infants and adults find linguistic structure in speech, and how we can pack so much conceptual information inside those tiny and odd bits of sounds that we call words.


Selected research activities

Posters presented at International Workshops

  • Canudas-Grabolosa, I, Pagliarini, E and Bonatti, L.L., The relationship between numerals and logical connectives: the case of ‘AND’.  44th Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA, USA (2019, November).
  • Canudas-Grabolosa, I, Pagliarini E, Chierchia G and Bonatti L. L.. Perception of entailment in numerals, ‘and’ and ‘or’: experimental evidence.  Brain, Language & Learning, Siena, Italy (2019, September).
  • Canudas-Grabolosa, I, Pagliarini E, Chierchia G and Bonatti L. L.,  Perception of entailment in numerals, ‘and’ and ‘or’. James S. McDonnell Plenary Workshop 2019, Martha’s Vineyard, MA, USA (2019, June)
  • Bohus, K.A., McGuill, M. & Bonatti, L.L., Exploring the representations of early logical reasoning: the power and limits of neural network models.  Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development, Budapest, Hungary (2019, January)
  • Martín, A., Pallier, C., Reverberi, C., Solari, A., Filippin, L. &  Bonatti, L. L., Behavioral and neural correlates of logical inferences. Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development, Budapest, Hungary (2019, January)
  • Martín, A., Bonatti, L.L, & Gervain, J., Behavioral markers and neural representations of logical inferences in 12 month old infants. James S. McDonnell Plenary Workshop 2019, Martha’s Vineyard, MA, USA (2019, June)

Selected Invited Conferences

  • Jan 25    Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Escuela de Psicología, Santiago, Chile. Invited Speaker.
  • Feb 4    Collège de France, Paris. Invited Speaker, La naissance du raisonnement.
  • Jun 24  McDonnell Network on the Origins of Abstract, Combinatorial Thought Plenary Meeting, Martha’s Vineyard, USA. Invited Speaker.
  • Sept 12   International Congress “Healthy and Active Children”, Verona, Italy.  Plenary Lecturer.
  • Sept 14   14th Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition conference (GALA 14), Milan, Italy. Keynote Address.