Education

Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University, 2009-2011

PhD, Miami University, 2009

Research Interests

• My research focuses on the attention and memory mechanisms underlying complex skill acquisition and execution. In particular, I examine how cognitive and situational factors such as individual differences in working memory capacity and types of instruction impact how people learn and perform skills ranging from attention-demanding mathematical problem-solving to more proceduralized sensorimotor skills. The goal of this work is to advance theory underlying complex skill performance and to better inform educational practice. 

Select Publications (a complete list, and links to full-text versions, can be found on my lab website)

• DeCaro, M. S., & Rittle-Johnson, B. (2012). Exploring mathematics problems prepares children to learn from instruction. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 113, 552-568. 
• DeCaro, M. S., Thomas, R. D., Albert, N. B., & Beilock, S. L. (2011). Choking under pressure: Multiple routes to skill failure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140, 390-406.
• DeCaro, M. S., Rotar, K. E., Kendra, M. S., & Beilock, S. L. (2010). Diagnosing and alleviating the impact of performance pressure on mathematical problem solving. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63, 1619-1630.
• DeCaro, M. S., & Beilock, S. L. (2010). The benefits and perils of attentional control. In B. Bruya and M. Csikszentmihalyi (Eds.), Effortless Attention: A New Perspective in the Cognitive Science of Attention and Action. MIT Press.
• DeCaro, M. S., Carlson, K. D., Thomas, R. D., & Beilock, S. L. (2009). When and how less is more: Reply to Tharp & Pickering. Cognition, 111, 415-421.
• DeCaro, M. S., Thomas, R. D., & Beilock, S. L. (2008). Individual differences in category learning: Sometimes less working memory capacity is better than more. Cognition, 107, 284-294. 

• Beilock, S. L., & DeCaro, M. S. (2007). From poor performance to success under stress: Working memory, strategy selection, and mathematical problem solving under pressure. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33, 983-998.
• DeCaro, M. S., Wieth, M., & Beilock, S. L. (2007). Methodologies for examining problem solving success and failure. Methods, 42, 58-67.

• Experimental Psychology
• Seminar: Working Memory in Everyday Life
• Research Psychology