Campus Directory

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Biography

Gia M. Macias, Ph.D., is currently a lecturer at Saint Xavier University, specializing in cognitive psychology with a particular focus on attention, learning and memory. Macias earned both her bachelor's degree in psychology and master's degree in psychological sciences from CSU, San Bernardino. She earned her doctorate in cognitive psychology and a certificate in psychological statistics from Purdue University in 2024.  

Macias' research interests include memory and attentional processes. Her dissertation examined how interruptions with related content impacted learning while reading. Learning suffered when reading was interrupted by tasks that were related to the text's content. This suggests that interruptions might disrupt mental models about the content in the text, which are developed over time as one reads. This research has implications in educational (e.g., in the classroom; studying for exams), clinical (e.g., therapeutic techniques for ADD), and workplace settings (e.g., medication administration; air-traffic control; and human-computer interaction).  

Previous projects have also examined the effects that state and trait anxiety have on components of attention, such as executive control and alerting and recognition memory performance for emotional versus neutral words using modified Flanker and Stroop tasks. Furthermore, she has conducted research on how event boundaries affect executive control using an AX-CPT task.

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Presentations/Publications/Productions

Manuscripts 

Macias, G. M. (in prep). Interrupting Learning with Related Tasks. 

Macias, G. M., & Schneider, D. W. (in prep). Interrupted Reading with Similar and  

Dissimilar Information.  

Schneider, D. W., & Macias, G. M. (in prep). Alertness and Cognitive Control in the  

Simon Task. 

 

Conference talks 

Macias, G. M. (2019). “Trait Anxiety and its Effects on an Emotional Stroop Task.” Paper presented at the annual Western Psychological Association Convention, Pasadena, Calif. 

 

Conference posters 

Macias, G. M. & Schneider, D. W. (2024). “Relationship Between Trait Anxiety and Components of Attention.” Paper presented at the annual Midwestern Psychological Association Convention, Chicago, Ill. 

Macias, G. M. & Schneider, D. W. (2022). “Relationship Between Trait Anxiety and Components of Attention.” Paper presented at the 63rd annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Boston, Mass. 

Macias, G. M. & Schneider, D. W. (2021). “Interrupted Reading With Similar and Dissimilar Tasks.” Paper presented at the 62nd annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Virtual.  

Schneider, D. W. & Macias, G. M. (2020). “Alertness and Cognitive Control: Interactions in the  

Simon Task.” Paper presented at the 61st annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Virtual.  

Macias, G. M., Selim, S., Ruelas–Godinez, B., Radvansky, G., & Reimer, J. (2019). “The  

Influence of Event Boundaries on Cognitive Control.” Paper presented at the annual Western Psychological Association Convention, Pasadena, Calif. 

Koshino, H., O’Donnell, K. A., & Macias, G. M. (2018). “Effects of Anxiety on the Trial Sequence in Emotional Attention Tasks.” Paper presented at the 59th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, New Orleans, La.  

Macias, G. M. (2018). “Effects of Anxiety on an Emotional Stroop Task.” Paper presented at the  

annual Western Psychological Association Convention, Portland, Ore.   

Macias, G. M., Kim, H., & Koshino, H. (2017). “Does High State Anxiety Have an Effect on  

Emotional Attention?” Paper presented at the annual Western Psychological Association Convention, Sacramento, Calif. 

Macias, G. M., O’Donnell, K., Kim, H., & Koshino, H. (2017). “Interactions Between Anxiety  

and Emotional Attention.” Paper presented at the 58th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Vancouver, Canada.  

Macias, G. M. (2016). “Conflicting Motivation: Understanding Latino’s Responses to In–Group  

Member’s Claims of Discrimination.” Paper presented at the annual Meeting of the Minds, San Bernardino, Calif.

 

Professional media contributions 

 “Twitternome”, Psychonomic Society 

Gia Macias – Purdue University, Spark Society 

#psynom20: Interview with Twitternome Gia Macias, Psychonomic Society