Francesco Sella

Research Interests
Post-doc in developmental psychology.

After the master degree, I did a one year internship as clinical psychologist helping children with learning disabilities and behavioral disorders. I also had a good feeling doing research then I decided to enroll a PhD program in developmental psychology at the University of Padova. I began working on motor inhibition with a specific focusing on the strategies that individuals implement when controlling/inhibiting pre-programmed movements. Almost at the same time, I became more and more interested in numerical cognition which it is now my main research topic. In last years, I have been conducting a heterogeneous mix of behavioral experiments investigating basic numerical processes (e.g., subitizing, estimation) as well as more complex abilities (e.g., strategy selection in computational estimation) in typical and atypical developing children. Lately, I have focused my research on early numerical competences in preschool children in order to investigate how numerical skills (e.g., counting, spatial representation of numbers, symbolic/non-symbolic numerical processing) develop and interact each other. Along with this project, I am also collaborating in the realization of training studies to evaluate the effectiveness of specific game-software in enhancing numerical abilities in preschool and primary school children. Finally, I am enthusiastic R user and I recently discovered Sweave!

Education

PhD in Developmental Psychology, University of Padova (2013)

Laurea (M.Sc.), Clinical Psychology, University of Padova (2008)

Representative publications

• Sella, F., Bonato, M., Cutini, S., & Umiltà, C. (2012, in press). Living on the edge: strategic and instructed slowing in the stop signal task. Psychological research. doi:10.1007/s00426-012-0419-y

• Sella, F., Re, A. M., Lucangeli, D., Cornoldi, C., & Lemaire, P. (2012, in press). Strategy Selection in ADHD Characteristics Children: A Study in Arithmetic. Journal of attention disorders. doi:10.1177/1087054712438766
• Bonato, M., Sella, F., Berteletti, I., & Umiltà, C. (2012). Neuropsychology is nothing without control : A potential fallacy hidden in clinical studies. Cortex, 12-14. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2011.06.017
• Tressoldi, P. E., Sella, F., Coltheart, M., & Umiltà, C. (2012, in press). Using functional neuroimaging to test theories of cognition: A selective survey of studies from 2007 to 2011 as a contribution to the decade of the mind initiative. Cortex. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2012.05.024
• Cornoldi, C., Del Prete, F., Gallani, G., Sella, F., & Re, A. M. (2010). Components affecting expressive writing in typical and disabled writers, in Professor Margo Mastropieri, Professor Thomas Scruggs (ed.) Literacy and Learning (Advances in Learning and Behavioral Disabilities, Volume 23), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.269-286.

• http://www.psy.unipd.it/~sella