Mariagrazia Ranzini

I am an experimental psychologist, and my research focuses mainly on the mental representation of numbers and quantities, within the theoretical framework of embodied cognition accounts. I study numerical processing in relation to attention, memory, and action. During my PhD (Psychology, University of Pavia) I carried out a series of studies at the University of Milan-Bicocca on the role of mathematical expertise in the representation and processing of numbers. Both before and during the PhD I was a visiting researcher at the laboratory Neurospin (Paris, France). Later I worked as postdoc researcher in Italy (University of Bologna; University of Padua) and abroad (from 2012 to 2017 at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, ULB). Each experience was highly enriching both personally and professionally, allowing me to develop professional skills. My long periods abroad allowed me to learn how to work naturally in multilingual and interdisciplinary environments. In 2020 I have obtained a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship for a project on the cognitive and neural processes shared between numerical processing and hand actions. My research interests also include visuospatial attention, working memory, synaesthesia, cognitive aspects of manual action, attention deficit and calculation. I commonly use behavioural research methods (including eye-tracking and hand kinematics). I also use neuroimaging techniques (e.g., fNIRS) to test cognitive theories. I have many personal interests, including pottery, playing the flute, ice-skating. I love listening, and I am against any kind of war.