Giorgio Piazza
I’m a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, working in Dr. Giovanni Di Liberto’s lab. My research focuses on naturalistic communication and the relationship between speech perception and production using OPM-MEG. Before this, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, where I studied audiovisual integration and proactive brain processes using EEG. I completed my PhD at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) in San Sebastián, Spain, with a thesis on phonetic changes and speech adaptation in listener-oriented speech.
In my free time I am a rugby player, I read and write, I play drum, and I like practicing a large variety of sports and activities.
RESEARCH
I am a linguist and my field of interest is
language research, bilingualism, speech production, sentence processing, and psycholingusitics.
AUDIOVISUAL INTEGRATION AND PREDICTIVE PROCESSING
LINK BETWEEN SPEECH PRODACTION AND COMPREHENSION
SOCIALLY MEDIATED SPEECH PRODUCTION AND COMPREHENSION
-
I study how the brain combines visual and auditory cues during speech, and how these cues support prediction of upcoming linguistic information. This includes how listeners use mouth movements, prosody, and contextual expectations to streamline comprehension.
-
My work examines the shared mechanisms behind speaking and listening using neuroimaging techniques. I look at how the way we produce speech affects how others understand it, and how our experience as listeners shapes the way we talk, particularly in real-world communication.
-
I investigate how social factors, such as who we are talking to, shape both how we speak and how we perceive speech. This includes how speakers adjust their speech based on the listener’s background, such as native vs. non-native status, familiarity, or contextual demands.
Contact me if you wish to know more about my research.
giorgio.piazza@hotmail.it
2025
Piazza, G., Carta, S., Ip, E., Kalashnikova, M., Martin, C.D., Di Liberto, G.M. (2025).
Are you talking to me? How the choice of speech register impacts listeners’
hierarchical encoding of speech, Imaging Neuroscience, 3(23). https://doi.org/10.1162/imag_a_00539
2022
Piazza, G., Martin, C., & Kalashnikova, M. (2022). The acoustic features and didactic function of Foreigner Directed Speech: A Scoping Review. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. 65(3): 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-21-00609.
2021
Piazza, G., Calabria, M., Semenza, C., & Poletto, C. (2021). Processing of semantic and grammatical gender in Spanish speakers with aphasia. Aphasiology. Doi:10.1080/02687038.2021.1924355
2020
Grunden, N., Piazza, G., García-Sánchez, C., & Calabria, M. (2020). Voluntary language switching in the context of bilingual aphasia. Behavioral Sciences, 10(9). Doi:10.3390/bs10090141
MY CV
Achievements and Experience
Download my resume here
MARIE CURIE POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW
November 2025 – Present
Trinity College Dublin (IRL), Di Liberto LAB
MASTER OF ARTS IN APPLIED STATISTICS
December 2020 – October 2021
I was awarded the Master's Degree in Applied Statistics at UNED.
PHD STUDENT
November 2019 – October 2023
I was a predoctoral researcher at the BCBL, a research center with high-quality standards and competitive lab equipment (EEG, MEG, eyetracking, RMI). I work under the supervision of Prof. Clara Martin and Prof. Marina Kalashnikova, investigating speech production and perception with foreigner interaction (L2 speakers). We are aiming to conduct EEG/ERP experiments to understand which early (300ms) ERP component is related to the intention of an unconscious hyper-articulation of words in L1 speakers when addressing a foreigner. In addition, we wish to better understand the perception mechanism of foreigner directed speech and whether this type of speech elicits typical components in comparison with native directed speech and whether foreigner directed speech elicits a higher neural entrainment with the listener than native directed speech.
LA CAIXA-INPHINIT FELLOW
November 2019
"La Caixa” Foundation awarded me with the INPhINIT fellowship, one of the most competitive and prestigious grants in Europe. This is a selective fellowship that promotes innovative and high-quality research by recruiting outstanding international students and offering them an attractive and competitive environment for conducting research of excellence.
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
University Pompeu Fabra (Spain)
April 2019 – July 2019
I was awarded a three-month grant (Erasmus Traineeship) for research and I joined the Speech Production and Bilingualism group (Brain and Cognition Lab). I worked with Prof. Marco Calabria on bilingual production (language switching).
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
University of Padua (Italy)
October 2018 – April 2019
I collaborated with the CoLab research group in Padua (Cognition and Language Laboratory – Language section) and I helped to conduct an EEG/Time-Frequency experiment.
I also conducted an experiment on Italian-Venetian dialect bilingualism, based on findings on within-language semantic interference effects and between-languages translation facilitation effects.
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
Pompeu Fabra University (Spain)
October 2017 – July 2018
I was a research assistant for an EEG/ERPs study on bilingual population in Catalonia. I autonomously recruited and tested 27 participants. I also ran data analysis employing BrainVision Analyzer.
I conducted a behavioral study for my Master’s thesis, titled “Transparent and Opaque Gender Processing in Spanish Patients with Aphasia. A Case Study on Gender Priming and Semantic vs Grammatical Gender.”, at Barcelona’s Sant Pau Hospital, supervised by Prof. Cecilia Poletto, Prof. Carlo Semenza and Prof. Marco Calabria.
Working with aphasic patients and with bilingual participants and managing all the organizational duties has forced me to be flexible and has allowed me to develop my problem-solving skills.
MASTER’S DEGREE IN LINGUISTICS
2016-2018
I graduated in October 2018 with a final grade of 110/110 summa cum laude
GET IN TOUCH
Mikeletegi Pasealekua, 69, 20009 Donostia, Gipuzkoa
+34 943 309 300 Ext.: 312
