In 1983 he graduated in experimental psychology from the University of Padua, where he also obtained his research doctorate in 1990.
[1] He was scientific director of the Interdepartmental Center for Mind and Brain (CIMEC) in Trento, until the first half of 2015.
In 2013 he was awarded the Ferrari Soave Award with the following citation: "The main scientific interests of Prof. Giorgio Vallortigara concern the analysis of spatial cognition in birds and the mechanisms underlying their geometric representation.
In these fields he has made original and innovative contributions of great international relevance.
"[2] In 2016 he received the award for ethology Prix Geoffroy Saint Hilaire of the French Society for the Study of Animal Behavior and an honorary degree from the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany.
Neurons in the dorso-central division of zebrafish pallium respond to change in visual numerosity.
Transfer from number to size reveals abstract coding of magnitude in honeybees.
Buiatti, M., Di Giorgio, E., Piazza, M., Polloni, C., Menna, G., Taddei, F., Baldo, E., Vallortigara, G. (2019).
Visually-naïve chicks prefer agents that move as if constrained by a bilateral body-plan.
Number-space mapping in the newborn chick resembles humans’ mental number line.