• Dr. Pipitone received a Ph.D. in Psychology with a concentration in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University at Albany.
• Before arriving at FGCU, he was an associate professor at Adams State University in Southern Colorado.

Broadly defined, Dr. Pipitone’s research considers the impact of evolution on human behavior and cognition. Specific areas include visual processing of evolutionarily relevant stimuli, sex differences in mating strategies, and human vocal production and perception. He also works with colleagues at FGCU and in the state of Florida assessing the therapeutic effectiveness of medical marijuana among Florida medical marijuana patients.

He has a long track record of collaborating with faculty and students on a wide variety of research projects and uses several techniques to collect data, including online surveys and smartphone apps, eye-tracking, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).

His courses reflect his education and research interests, with a focus on the biology of human behavior, psychopharmacology, and psychology statistics.

• General Psychology (PSY 2012)
• Survey of Analytical Techniques (PSY 3205)
• Physiological Psychology (PSB 4002)
• Drugs and Behavior (PSB 3444)
• Evolutionary Psychology (PSB 2580)
• Directed Studies (PSY 4913)

Recent peer-reviewed journal articles:

• Pipitone, R.N., Banai, B., Dautrich., T., Walters, J., Schuller, K. & Rosenthal, M. (2024). Using smartphone technology to track real-time changes in anxiety/depression symptomatology among Florida cannabis users, Cannabis, https://doi.org/10.26828/cannabis/2024/000223.
• DiMattina, C., Pipitone, R.N., Renteria, M.* & Ryan, K.* (2024). Trypophobia, skin disease, and the visual discomfort of natural textures, Scientific Reports, 14:5050. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-55149-8
• Pipitone, R.N., DiMattina, C., Martin, E.*, Pavela Banai, I., Bellmore, K.* & De Angelis, M.* (2022). Evaluating the ‘skin disease-avoidance’ and ‘dangerous animal’ frameworks for understanding trypophobia, Cognition & Emotion, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2022.2071236.
• Pipitone, R. N., Cruz, L.* Morales, H.N.*, Aladro, D.*, Savitsky, S. R.*, Koroleva, M.*, Valdez, F.*, Campbell, E.* & Miranda, S.* (2021). Sex differences in attitudes towards casual sex: Using STI contraction likelihoods to assess evolved mating strategies, Frontiers in Psychology: Evolutionary Psychology, 12:706149. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.706149.
• Sajdeya, R., Shavers, A., Jean-Jacques, J., Costales, B., Jugl, S., Crump, C., Wang, Y., Manfio, L., Pipitone, R.N., Rosenthal, M. S., Winterstein, A.G. & Cook, R.L. (2021). Practice patterns and training needs among physicians certifying patients for medical marijuana in Florida, Journal of Primary Care & Community Health, 12: 1–11. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21501327211042790.
• Rosenthal, M.S. & Pipitone, R.N. (2020). Demographics, perceptions, and use of medical marijuana among patients in Florida. Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids, 4(1) 13-20. DOI: 10.1159/000512342
• Pipitone, R.N. & DiMattina, C. (2020). Object clusters or spectral energy? Assessing the relative contributions of image phase and amplitude spectra to trypophobia. Frontiers in Psychology: Perception Science, 11:1847. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01847
• Shoup-Knox, M.L., Ostrander, G.M.*, Reimann, G.E. & Pipitone, R.N. (2019). Fertility-dependent acoustic variation in women’s voices previously shown to affect listener physiology and perception. Evolutionary Psychology, 1 – 10.
• Ostrander, G.M.*, Pipitone, R.N. & Shoup-Knox, M.L. (2018). Interactions Between Observer and Stimuli Fertility Status: Endocrine and Perceptual Responses to Intrasexual Vocal Fertility Cues. Hormones and Behavior, 98, 191-197.
• Pipitone, R.N., Gallegos, B.*, & Walters, D.* (2017). Physiological responses to trypophobic images and further scale validity of the trypophobia questionnaire. Personality and Individual Differences, 108, 66-68.

* Indicates undergraduate / graduate student authors