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Dr. Macarena Suarez Pellicioni

Assistant Professor, Educational Neuroscience
Department of Educational Studies in Psychology, Research Methodology, and Counseling

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    Macarena Suarez Pellicioni

    EDUCATION

    Postdoctoral FellowVanderbilt University
    Postdoctoral FellowUniversity of Texas at Austin
    Ph.D.PsychologyUniversity of Barcelona, Spain
    M.S.Cognitive Science and LanguageUniversity of Barcelona, Spain
    B.S.PsychologyUniversity of Barcelona, Spain
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    AREAS OF EXPERTISE

    Cognitive neuroscience

    Educational neuroscience

    Math cognition

    Math anxiety

    Learning and development

    Neuroimaging

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    HIGHLIGHTED RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS

    1. Suárez Pellicioni, M., Demir-Lira, E., & Booth, J.R. (2024). Positive math attitudes are associated with greater frontal cortex activation to solve large multiplication problems among children from higher socio-economic status families. Neuropsychologia, 194, 108788.
    2. Suárez Pellicioni, M., Prado, J., & Booth, J.R. (2022). Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying multiplication and subtraction performance in adults and skill development in children: a scoping review. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 48, 101228.
    3. Suárez Pellicioni, M. & Booth, J.R. (2022). Temporal cortex activation explains children’s improvement in math attitudes. Child Development, 93, 4, 1–18.
    4. Suárez Pellicioni, M., Soylu, F., & Booth, J. (2021). Gray matter volume in intraparietal sulcus predicts longitudinal gains in subtraction skill in elementary school. NeuroImage, 235, 118021.
    5. Suárez Pellicioni, M., Demir-Lira, Ö.E., & Booth, J.R. (2021). Neurocognitive mechanisms explaining the role of math attitudes in predicting children’s improvement in multiplication skill. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience, DOI: 10.3758/s13415-021-00906-9.
    6. Suárez Pellicioni, M., Berteletti, I., & Booth, J.R. (2020). Early engagement of parietal cortex for subtraction solving predicts longitudinal gains in behavioral fluency in children. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 14, 163.
    7. Demir-Lira, Ö.E., Suárez Pellicioni, M., Binzak, J.V. & Booth, J.R. (2020). Attitudes Toward Math are Differentially Related to the Neural Basis of Multiplication Depending on Math Skill. Learning Disability Quarterly, 43(3), 1-13.
    8. Suárez Pellicioni, M., Fuchs, L., & Booth, J.R. (2019). Tempo-frontal activation during phonological processing predicts gains in arithmetic facts in young children. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 40, 100735.
    9. Suárez Pellicioni, M., Lytle, M., Younger, J., & Booth, J.R. (2019). A longitudinal neuroimaging dataset on arithmetic processing in 8- to 16-year old children. Scientific Data, 2019; 6: 190040.
    10. Suárez Pellicioni, M., Prado, J. & Booth, J.R. (2018). Lack of improvement in multiplication is associated with reverting from verbal retrieval to numerical operations. NeuroImage, 183, 859-871.
    11. Suárez Pellicioni, M. & Booth, J.R. (2018). Fluency in symbolic arithmetic refines the approximate number system in parietal cortex. Human Brain Mapping, 39: 3956-3971.
    12. Núñez-Peña, M.I., Tubau, E. & Suárez Pellicioni, M. (2017). Post-error response inhibition in high math-anxious individuals: Evidence from a multi-digit addition task. Acta Psychologica, 177, 17-22.
    13. Núñez-Peña, M.I. & Suárez Pellicioni, M. (2015). Processing of multi-digit additions in high math-anxious individuals: Psychophysiological evidence. Frontiers in Psychology, 6 (1268).
    14. Suárez Pellicioni, M., Núñez-Peña, M.I. & Colomé, A. (2015). Math anxiety: A review of its cognitive consequences, psychophysiological correlates, and brain bases. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 16(1), 3-22.
    15. Suárez Pellicioni, M., Núñez-Peña, M.I. & Colomé, A. (2015). Attentional bias in high math-anxious individuals: Evidence from an emotional Stroop task. Frontiers in Psychology, 6 (1577).
    16. Núñez-Peña, M.I., Bono, R. & Suárez Pellicioni, M. (2015).Feedback on students’ performance: A possible way of reducing the negative effect of math anxiety in higher education. International Journal of Educational Research, 70, 80-87.
    17. Núñez-Peña, M.I. & Suárez Pellicioni, M. (2014). Less precise representation of numerical magnitude in high math-anxious individuals: An ERP study of the size and distance effects.Biological Psychology, 103, 176-183.
    18. Suárez Pellicioni, M., Núñez-Peña, M.I. & Colomé, A. (2014). Reactive recruitment of attentional control in math anxiety: an ERP study of the numeric conflict monitoring and adaptation.PLoS ONE, 9(6): e99579.
    19. Suárez Pellicioni, M., Núñez-Peña, M.I. & Colomé, A. (2013). Abnormal error monitoring in math-anxious individuals: evidence from error-related brain potentials. PLoS ONE, 8(11), e81143.
    20. Suárez Pellicioni, M., Núñez-Peña, M.I. & Colomé, A. (2013). Mathematical anxiety effects on simple arithmetic processing efficiency: An Event-related potential study. Biological Psychology, 94, 517-526.
    21. Núñez-Peña, M.I., Guilera, G. & Suárez Pellicioni, M. (2013). The Single-Item Math Anxiety scale (SIMA): An alternative way of measuring mathematical anxiety. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 32(4), 306-317.
    22. Núñez-Peña, M.I., Suárez Pellicioni, M. & Bono, R. (2013). Effects of math anxiety on student success in higher education. International Journal of Educational Research, 58, 36-43.
    23. Núñez-Peña, M.I., Suárez Pellicioni, M., Guilera, G. & Mercadé-Carranza, C. (2013). A Spanish version of the short Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (sMARS).Learning and Individual Differences,24,204-206.
    24. Núñez-Peña, M.I. & Suárez Pellicioni, M. (2012). Processing false solutions in additions: differences between high- and lower-skilled arithmetic problem-solvers. Experimental Brain Research, 218(4), 655-663.
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    BIOGRAPHY

    Dr. Macarena Suárez Pellicioni is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Studies in Psychology, Research Methodology, and Counseling at the University of Alabama. She is a core faculty member in the Educational Neuroscience concentration. She obtained her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Barcelona, where she used event-related potentials (ERPs) to study the electrophysiological correlates of math anxiety in adults. She then continued her training as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin (2015-2017) and at Vanderbilt University (2017-2019) working with Dr. James Booth on a project aiming to identify the neurocognitive mechanisms explaining longitudinal improvement in math in children using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).

    She joined the University of Alabama in January 2020 as an Assistant Professor and since then she has been building the Brain, Learning, and Education (BLE) lab. Her research uses behavioral and neuroscience methods (ERPs, fMRI) to understand individual differences in math skill and to identify the neurocognitive mechanisms predicting longitudinal gains in arithmetic skill over time, studying the roles of cognitive (e.g. phonological skill), affective (e.g. math anxiety; math attitudes), and social (e.g. SES) factors in explaining or mediating these effects.

    Dr. Suárez Pellicioni teaches a range of undergraduate and graduate courses including Advanced Educational Psychology; Numerical Cognition; Methods and Trends in Educational Neuroscience, and Readings in Educational Psychology. For more information about Dr. Suárez Pellicioni see:

    https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fdmg8PMAAAAJ&hl=es

    https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Macarena-Suarez-Pellicioni

    https://twitter.com/DrPellicioni