CLELIA MATILDE ROSSI ARNAUD

CURRENT POSITION
Full professor for the Scientific-Disciplinary Sector GSD 11/PSIC-01 – PSIC-01/A (General Psychology) at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome.
• Coordinates the Learning and Memory Laboratory of the Department of Psychology.
• In the current year teaches 22 university education credits (188 hours) in Medical and Psychological degrees.
• Member of the PhD Board in Behavioural Neuroscience.
• Promoter of bilateral exchanges within the European Erasmus project (currently promoter of 22 grants in 13 universities in 7 countries).
• Member of the Association for Psychological Science (APS), Psychonomic Society, European Society for Cognitive Psychology (Escop), Member of the Italian Society for Psychology, Associazione Italiana di Psicologia (AIP).
• Member of the International Committee for the European Working Memory Symposium (Ewoms).
• Member of the Editorial Board of Scientific Reports (Nature Portfolio).
• Reviewer for (among others): Acta Psychologica; Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology; Experimental Aging Research; Frontiers in Psychology; Gesture; Journal of Cognitive Psychology; Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition; Journal of Research in Childhood Education; Memory; Neurobiology of Learning and Memory; PeerJ; Physiology & Behavior; Psychiatry Research; Psychology and Aging; The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology; Schizophrenia Research.

ROLES and ASSIGNMENTS
2022-2024: Member of the Board of the Faculty of Medicine and Psychology.
Member of the Board of the Department of Psychology representing Full Professors (elected 27/10/2022)
Up to Oct 2024 Teaching board of the graduate school in Life Cycle Psychology and in the graduate school in Neuropsychology, Sapienza University of Rome.
2016/2019: Member of the Board of the Faculty of Medicine and Psychology (05/12/2016-01/2019)
2014/2019: Member of the Board of the Department of Psychology representing Associate Professors.: elected on 10 February 2014 (re-elected in 2016);
2012/2017: Member of the Joint Commission Sapienza University-Lazio Board of Psychologists (2012-03/2017)
Until 2011: Member of the faculty of Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology, Psychophysiology, and Personality, Sapienza University of Rome;
2001-2010 Socrates Erasmus Scientific Coordinator for the First School of Psychology of Sapienza University and Promoter of bilateral exchanges
- Member of the Interuniversity Centre for Research on Cognitive Processing in Natural and Artificial Systems (ECONA);
- Member of the teaching board of the Advanced Course in Cognitive Psychology and Neural Networks.
2000/2019: Associate professor (II fascia) for the scientific-disciplinary sector M-PSI/01 General Psychology at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome.
1995: Researcher in the scientific-disciplinary field M10 (General Psychology and Research Methodology), School of Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Rome "La Sapienza".

INTERNATIONAL LEADERSHIP & GENDER EQUALITY ADVOCACY
• Coordinator of the Sapienza unit for the Erasmus+ CBHE WE4LEAD project (ended: April 2026), an international capacity-building project aimed at promoting women's leadership and transforming the governance of higher education institutions in the Mediterranean region.
• Expert for the Women Lead Change project, funded by the Union for the Mediterranean, which aims to strengthen women's participation in decision-making positions and leadership dynamics within the Euro-Mediterranean region.
• Member of the Scientific Committee of RESUFF (Francophone Network of Women Leaders in Higher Education and Research), contributing to international academic initiatives, gender equity advocacy, and institutional governance reform across the Francophone network.
• Member of the MINERVA Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory dedicated to gender policies, diversity, and inclusion, using an approach based on empirical data and social innovation.

RESEARCH FIELDS
Eyewitness memory; The effects of collaboration on memory performance; Working memory; Implicit memory; Memory and aging; Memory in psychiatric patients; Memory consolidation and reconsolidation.

PUBLICATIONS:
Author of 104 publications in international peer-reviewed journals or chapters in international books.
• Orcid author number 0000-0001-5006-6583 (http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5006-6583)
• Scopus Author ID: 57201651297; H index reported by Scopus: 26; Citations: 2984.
• Loop profile: 500195

Book Chapter (2023-2026)
Spataro, P., Rossi-Arnaud, C., & Mulligan, N. W. (2025). Implicit vs. explicit memory. In Learning and Memory: A Comprehensive Reference, pp. V4–18.

Peer reviewed international publications (2023–2026)
1. Naser, A., Tessitore, G., Atzeni, R., Corrado Adamo, F., Santirocchi, A., Rogliero, G., Cestari, V., & Rossi-Arnaud, C. (2026). Testing the effects of presentation modality and presence of similarity percentages in the Automatic Image Recognition System in Italy. Frontiers in Psychology, 17, Article 1143285.
2. Spataro, P., Mulligan, N. W., Santirocchi, A., & Rossi-Arnaud, C. (2026). Two minds don't boost together: Target detection enhances the recognition of self-relevant, but not other-relevant, items. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 79(5), pp. 1110–1124.
3. Santirocchi, A., Spataro, P., Pesola, M. C., Naser, A., Cestari, V., & Rossi-Arnaud, C. (2025). Relations between suggestibility, working memory and response inhibition in middle childhood. Scientific Reports, 15(1), Article 4102.
4. Loru, E., Nudo, J., Di Marco, N., Santirocchi, A., Atzeni, R., Cinelli, M., Cestari, V., Rossi-Arnaud, C., & Quattrociocchi, W. (2025). The simulation of judgment in LLMs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 122(14), e2419830122.
5. Spataro, P., Prull, M. W., Santirocchi, A., & Rossi-Arnaud, C. (2024). The Attentional Boost Effect in Older Adults: Examining the Vulnerable Boost Hypothesis. Experimental Aging Research, 50(4), pp. 411–429.
6. Santirocchi, A., Spataro, P., Rossi-Arnaud, C., Esposito, A., Costanzi, M., Alessi, F., & Cestari, V. (2024). The role of personality traits and emotional intelligence in the evaluation of the benefits and costs of social distancing during a pandemic outbreak. Scientific Reports, 14, Article 24018.
7. Rossi-Arnaud, C., Spataro, P., Santirocchi, A., Pesola, M. C., Costanzi, L., & Cestari, V. (2024). Positive and negative effects of collaboration on suggestibility and false memory in online groups. Current Psychology, 43(6), pp. 5703–5715.
8. Ricci, E., Colasanti, M., Monaro, M., Mazza, C., Cardinale, A., Bosco, F., Mazzoni, G., Rossi-Arnaud, C., Ferracuti, S., Di Domenico, A., et al. (2023). How to Distinguish Feigned from Genuine Depressive Symptoms: Response Patterns and Content Analysis of the SIMS Affective Disorder Scale. Psychological Injury and Law, 16(3), pp. 289–301.
9. Santirocchi, A., Spataro, P., Alessi, F., Rossi-Arnaud, C., & Cestari, V. (2023). Trust in science and belief in misinformation mediate the effects of political orientation on vaccine hesitancy and intention to be vaccinated. Acta Psychologica, 237, Article 103945.
10. Rossi-Arnaud, C., Saraulli, D., Spataro, P., & Prull, M. (2023). Editorial: The attentional boost effect and related phenomena: new insights into the relation between attention and memory. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, Article 1226596.
11. Rossi-Arnaud, C., Mastroberardino, S., Spataro, P., Santirocchi, A., Alessi, F., Naser, A., Pesola, M. C., & Cestari, V. (2023). Autobiographical memory in contact tracing: evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, Article 1244568.
12. Rossi-Arnaud, C., Spataro, P., Mastroberardino, S., Lucaroni, S., Giannini, A. M., & Cestari, V. (2023). Why collaboration reduces suggestibility: The role of source-monitoring processes and retrieval strategies. Current Psychology, 42(8), pp. 6386–6394.
13. Cianfanelli, B., Esposito, A., Spataro, P., Santirocchi, A., Cestari, V., Rossi-Arnaud, C., & Costanzi, M. (2023). The binding of negative emotional stimuli with spatial information in working memory: A possible role for the episodic buffer. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 17, Article 1112805.

RECENT FUNDING:
2024: from Sapienza University Euros 34800 for a project titled “New approaches to countering misinformation: the role of cognitive functions in inoculation processes and the relationship between conspiracy and dark personality traits.”

Sept 2023- Sept 2025: PRIN funding from the Italian Ministry of Research: Euros 79 399 for a project titled “Emotional Intelligence and Policies towards the Sustainable Transition” that proposes that Emotional Intelligence (EI) may help lower resource absorption by promoting Sustainable Consumption (SC) with a shift from material to immaterial goods, so designing new pro-SD policies, while enhancing individual Wellbeing (WB).
March 2023 -Feb 2026: Erasmus + CBHE - Euros 94 000 for a project titled “WE4LEAD” aimed at transforming the governance of Mediterranean Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) through the promotion and adoption of a culture of gender equality.

2022: from Sapienza University Euros 10 000 for a project titled “A multidimensional approach to investigating the long-term cognitive, social, and clinical effects of the COVID-19 pandemic” aimed at understanding the psychological and cognitive processes involved in adhering to preventive behaviors (e.g., social distancing, vaccination programs) and studying mental health issues associated with the pandemic (PTSD).

Since the first project funded by the Italian Research Ministry in 2002 (PI of the COFIN project entitled “'Mechanisms of brain plasticity: from molecules to cognitive functions” Euro 133.000,00) she has then secured as PI, or helped secure as participant, around 25000 in national research grants in times of drastic cuts in research funding in Italy

PHD INTERNATIONAL EXAMINER
• Northumbria University, UK: Examiner for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy a thesis entitled: Identifying the Functional Architecture Underlying Multiple Representations in Visual Working Memory by Elisabeth Orme.
• Université de Bourgogne, France, Examiner for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (« Jury de thèse») and Reviewer “Rapporteur” for a thesis entitled: Les mécanismes de maintien de l’information verbale en mémoire de travail; by Gérome Mora

• Université Paris Descartes, France Examiner for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (« Jury de thèse») for a thesis entitled:: Association entre visages, expressifs ou non, et informations biographiques - Aspects différentiels : genre et age des sujets.by Johanna Stern.

SUPERVISION OF INTERNATIONAL PHD SUDENTS
Supervisor within this international agreement framework (special agreement between France and Italy for a joint supervision of PhD theses : CO-TUTELA/CO-TUTELLE) of a thesis conducted jointly in Sapienza University (Rome, Italy) and in the Université de Nantes, entitled Une langue dés l’école maternelle: Compréhension et production orales d’enfants de 4 à 8 ans en allemand et en anglais. By Madeleine Jaconelli.

Supervisor of Dr. V. Rezende Silva Marques funded by Fundaçao CAPES, Ministry of Education of Brasil, Sector Bancario Norte, Brasilia, Brasil. PhD in Sapienza University awarded in 2015

Supervisor of Dr. Divya Bhatia, Indian PhD student awarded an international PhD in Sapienza University in February 2020. Dr. Divya Bhatia is now an Associate Professor at the Jindal School of Psychology and Counselling, an ‘Institution of Eminence’ and India’s No. 1 private University.

SUPERIVISION OF NATIONAL PHD STUDENTS
• Dr A. Mancini (Dottorato, PhD awarded in 2004)
• Dr A. Cortese (Dottorato, PhD awarded in 2006)
• Dr L. Pieroni (Dottorato, PhD awarded in 2006)
• Dr T. Huenefeldt (Dottorato, PhD awarded in 2008)
• Dr J. Mari (Dottorato, PhD awarded in 2008)
• Dr. M. Di Nardo (Dottorato, PhD awarded in 2010)
• Dr P. Spataro (Dottorato, 1st PhD awarded in 2010 and 2nd PhD awarded in 2015)
• Dr G. Bechi Gabrielli (Dottorato, PhD awarded in February 2018)
• Dr M. C. Pesola ((Dottorato, PhD awarded in June 2025)
• Currently supervises Aicia Naser (Start date Nov. 2022) and Shuting An (Start date Nov. 2024)