Simone Varrasi

PhD Student
Tutor: Sabrina CASTELLANO

Research activity focuses on early diagnosis of cognitive impairment, with special attention to neuropsychological and psychometric aspects of assessment. Sleep, nutrition, possible uses of new technologies, and pharmacological, psychotherapeutic, and rehabilitation approaches for promoting quality of life are also explored.

1. Varrasi, S., Castellano, S., Platania, G. A., Guerrera, C. S., Caponnetto, P., & Pirrone, C. (2022).
"Don't touch your face!" The contribution of Habit Reversal in the COVID-19 pandemic. Health
Psychology Research, 10(4). ISSNe 2420-8124. https://doi.org/10.52965/001c.39650
2. Pirrone, C., Di Corrado, D., Privitera, A., Castellano, S., & Varrasi, S. (2022). Students'
mathematics anxiety at distance and in-person learning conditions during COVID-19
pandemic: are there any differences? An exploratory study. Education Sciences (MDPI), 12(6),
379. ISSNe: 2227-7102. https:// doi.org/10.3390/educsci12060379
3. Varrasi, S., & Hichy, Z. (2020). Contatto, emozioni e atteggiamenti intergruppi nella
relazione tra Meridionali e Settentrionali. Annali della Facoltà di Scienze della Formazione,
Università degli Studi di Catania, 19, 77-90. ISSN 2038-1328 / ISSNe 2039-4934.
https://doi.org/10.15169/unict-asdf.19.2020.6
4. Platania, G. A., Varrasi, S.*, Castellano, S., Godos, J., Pirrone, C., Petralia, M. C., Cantarella, R.
A., Tascedda, F., Guerrera, C. S., Buono, S., Caraci, F., & Blom, J. M. C. (2020). Biological and
neuropsychological markers of cognitive dysfunction in unipolar vs bipolar Depression: What

evidence do we have? Life Span and Disability, 23(2), 239-281. ISSN 2035-5963.
http://www.lifespanjournal.it/ client/abstract/ENG369_4.%20Platania.pdf
5. Castellano, S., Platania, G. A., Varrasi, S., Pirrone, C., & di Nuovo, S. (2020). Assessment tools
for risky behaviors: Psychology and health. Health Psychology Research, 8(2), 115-116. ISSNe:
2420-8124. https:// doi.org/10.4081/HPR.2020.9235
6. Rossi, S., Conti, D., Garramone, F., Santangelo, G., Staffa, M., Varrasi, S., & di Nuovo, A.
(2020). The role of personality factors and empathy in the acceptance and performance of a
social robot for psychometric evaluations. Robotics, 9(2), 39. ISSNe 2218-6581.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ ROBOTICS9020039
7. Di Nuovo, A., Varrasi, S., Lucas, A., Conti, D., McNamara, J., & Soranzo, A. (2019). Assessment
of Cognitive skills via Human-robot Interaction and Cloud Computing. Journal of Bionic
Engineering, 16(3), 526-539. ISSN 1672-6529 / ISSNe 2543-2141.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s42235-019-0043-2
8. Varrasi, S., Conti, D., & Di Nuovo, S. (2017). Il contributo della Robotica nell’assessment
psicologico: Una literature review. Formazione Psichiatrica e Scienze Umane, 37(1-2), 41-46.
http://www.formazionepsichiatrica.it/2017.html
* Corresponding author

Full papers su Proceedings di Congressi (Full papers on Congress Proceedings):
1. Pirrone, C., Varrasi, S.*, Platania, G. A., & Castellano, S. (2021). Face-to-face and online
learning: The role of technology in students’ metacognition. In P. Limone, & R. Di Fuccio (Eds),
Proceedings of the First Workshop on Technology Enhanced Learning Environments for
Blended Education – The Italian e-Learning Conference 2021. CEUR Workshop Proceedings,
2817. ISSN 1613-0073. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2817/ paper5.pdf
2. Di Nuovo, A., Varrasi, S., Conti, D., Bamsforth, J., Lucas, A., Soranzo, A., & McNamara, J.
(2019). Usability Evaluation of a Robotic System for Cognitive Testing. 14th ACM/IEEE
International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), 2019-March, 588-589. ISSNe
2167-2148. https://doi.org/10.1109/HRI. 2019.8673187
3. Varrasi, S., Lucas, A., Soranzo, A., McNamara, J., & di Nuovo, A. (2019). IBM cloud services
enhance automatic cognitive assessment via human-robot interaction. In G. Carbone, M.
Ceccarelli, & D. Pisla (Eds), New Trends in Medical and Service Robotics. Mechanisms and
Machine Science (Vol. 65, pp. 169-176). Springer, Cham. ISBN 978-3-030-00328-9 / ISBNe
978-3-030-00329-6. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-030-00329-6_20

4. Varrasi, S., Di Nuovo, S., Conti, D., & Di Nuovo A. (2019). Social Robots as Psychometric
Tools for Cognitive Assessment: A Pilot Test. In F. Ficuciello, & R. F., Finzi A. (Eds), Human
Friendly Robotics. Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics (Vol. 7, pp. 99-112). Springer,
Cham. ISBN 978-3-319-89326-6 / ISBNe 978-3-319-89327-3. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-
3-319-89327-3_8
5. Varrasi, S., di Nuovo, S., Conti, D., & di Nuovo, A. (2018). A Social Robot for Cognitive
Assessment. In Proceedings of the HRI '18: Companion of the 2018 ACM/IEEE International
Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, March 5-8, 2018, Chicago, IL, USA, 269-270. ISBN
9781450356152. https://doi.org/ 10.1145/3173386.3176995
6. Rossi, S., Santangelo, G., Staffa, M., Varrasi, S., Conti, D., & di Nuovo, A. (2018). Psychometric
Evaluation Supported by a Social Robot: Personality Factors and Technology Acceptance. In
RO-MAN 2018 - 27th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive
Communication (RO-MAN), 802-807. ISSNe 1944-9437.
https://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2018.8525838
7. Penders, J., Wang, J., Bhowmik, D., di Nuovo, A., Soranzo, A., Rolph, J., Popa, I., Varrasi, S.,
Lucas, A., Conti, D., Young, J., Alboul, L., Collins, E., Aitken, J. M., Law, J., & Cameron, D. (2018).
Robots claiming space: gauging public reaction using computer vision techniques. In M.
Giuliani, T. Assaf, & M. Giannaccini (Eds), Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS),
19th Annual Conference, Bristol, UK, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Including Subseries
Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) (Vol. 10965, pp.
468-470), Springer Verlag. ISBN 978-3-319-96728-8. https:// doi.org/ 10.1007/978-3-319-
96728-8

* Corresponding author

Abstract in Atti di Convegno (Abstracts on Congress Proceedings):
1. Guerrera, C. S., Sarti, P., Varrasi, S., Platania, G. A., Popovic, D., Tascedda, F., Pani, L.,
Brunello, N., Drago, F., Di Nuovo, S., Colliva, C., Castellano, S., Caraci, F. & Blom, J. M. C. (2022 -
accepted and in press). Network Intervention Analysis: an innovative tool to investigate
symptom-specific treatment effects in Major Depression and Bipolar Disorder. 41° Congresso
Nazionale della Società Italiana di Farmacologia – Il valore scientifico e l’uso appropriato del
farmaco, Roma, 16-19 Novembre 2022.
2. Varrasi, S., Platania, G. A., Boccaccio, F. M., & Pirrone, C. (2022). Stress and coping strategies
in the first lockdown: group differences and evidence-based strategies to reduce the

psychological burden. In F. Gambarota, M. Grassi, & S. Salcuni (Eds), XXX Congresso Nazionale
AIP - Sezioni Riunite, Padova University Press, Padova, 27-30 Settembre 2022.
3. Platania, G. A., Guerrera, C. S., Varrasi, S., Vezzosi, V., & Castellano, S. (2022). Intolerance to
uncertainty and personality factors towards COVID-19 pandemic: a study on the psychological
condition during first lockdown. In F. Gambarota, M. Grassi, & S. Salcuni (Eds), XXX Congresso
Nazionale AIP - Sezioni Riunite, Padova University Press, Padova, 27-30 Settembre 2022.
4. Varrasi, S., Guerrera, C. S., Platania, G. A., Pirrone, C., Castellano, S., & Caraci, F. (2021).
Bipolar Depression and pharmacological treatment with mood stabilizers and second-
generation antipsychotics: the impact on the affective, cognitive and psychosocial dimensions.
Atti del XXVII Congresso Nazionale AIP - Sezione Sperimentale, Lecce - Ibrido, 8-10 Settembre
2021.
5. Platania, G. A., Varrasi, S., Guerrera, C. S., Petralia, M. C., Castellano, S., Pirrone, C., & Caraci,
F. (2021). A dynamic network approach for the analysis of interactions between symptoms:
differences between Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder. Atti del XXVII
Congresso Nazionale AIP - Sezione Sperimentale, Lecce - Ibrido, 8-10 Settembre 2021.
6. Guerrera, C. S., Platania, G. A., Varrasi, S., Castellano, S., Pirrone, C., & Caraci, F. (2021). The
role of second-generation antipsychotics in Treatment-Resistant Major Depressive Disorder:
effects on cognitive symptoms. Atti del XXVII Congresso Nazionale AIP - Sezione Sperimentale,
Lecce - Ibrido, 8-10 Settembre 2021.
7. Varrasi, S., Platania, G. A., Castellano, S., Pirrone, C., & Caraci, F. (2020). Cognitive
dysfunction and differential diagnosis: unipolar vs bipolar Depression. Atti del XXVI
Congresso Nazionale AIP - Sezione Sperimentale, Virtual Edition, 2-4 Settembre 2020.