Randi Martin is the Elma Schneider Professor of Psychology at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranked among the top universit ...

and Director of the T. L. L. Temple Foundation Neuroplasticity Research Laboratory. With

Suparna Rajaram Suparna Rajaram, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Stony Brook University, is an Indian-born cognitive psychologist and expert on memory and amnesia. Rajaram served as Chair of the Governing Board of the Psychonomic Society (2008) an ...

and Judith Kroll, Martin co-founded

Women in Cognitive Science A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

in 2001, an organization supported in part through the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

's ADVANCE Leadership program. She is a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsi ...

and the Society of Experimental Psychologists (SEP). Martin is Senior Editor of the journal ''

Cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thoug ...

.'' Previously, she served on the Governing Board of the Academy of Aphasia and held leadership positions in the

Psychonomic Society The Psychonomic Society is an international scientific society of over 4,500 scientists in the field of experimental psychology. The mission of the Psychonomic Society is to foster the science of cognition through the advancement and communicati ...

. In 1995 she was honored with the Claude Pepper Award from the

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), a member of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, is mandated to conduct and support biomedical and behavioral research and research training in the normal and diso ...

(NICHD) to study how

language processing Language processing refers to the way humans use words to communicate ideas and feelings, and how such communications are processed and understood. Language processing is considered to be a uniquely human ability that is not produced with the sa ...

breaks down as a result of brain damage caused by stroke.

Biography

Martin received a B.A. (1971) in General Social Science and Mathematics from

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

. She completed a M.A. (1975) in Psychology at

Portland State University Portland State University (PSU) is a public research university in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decades ...

and a M.S. in psychology (1977), under the supervision of James Paulson. She continued her education at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consiste ...

where she earned a PhD (1979) in Psychology and a post-doctoral fellowship. At Hopkins, Martin worked with Alfonso Caramazza on studies of categorization and short-term memory. Since 1982, Martin has been a member of the faculty of Rice University.

Research

Martin conducts research in the field of

cognitive neuropsychology Cognitive neuropsychology is a branch of cognitive psychology that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relates to specific psychological processes. Cognitive psychology is the science that looks at how mental processes ...

, with a specific focus on

aphasia Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions. The major causes are stroke and head trauma; prevalence is hard to determine but aphasia due to stroke is estimated to be 0.1–0.4% in t ...

psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...

, and

language processing in the brain Language processing refers to the way humans use words to communicate ideas and feelings, and how such communications are processed and understood. Language processing is considered to be a uniquely human ability that is not produced with the sa ...

. With funding from the NICHD, Martin and her colleagues have researched different types of

short-term memory Short-term memory (or "primary" or "active memory") is the capacity for holding a small amount of information in an active, readily available state for a short interval. For example, short-term memory holds a phone number that has just been recit ...

loss and its impact on word learning and sentence comprehension. Her research team uses

neuroimaging Neuroimaging is the use of quantitative (computational) techniques to study the structure and function of the central nervous system, developed as an objective way of scientifically studying the healthy human brain in a non-invasive manner. Incr ...

(fMRI) to study language processing in individuals who have experienced brain damage or injury as well as in healthy individuals.

Representation publications

* Martin, R. C. (1993). Short-term memory and sentence processing: Evidence from neuropsychology. ''Memory & Cognition'', ''21''(2), 176–183. * Martin, R. C. (2003). Language processing: functional organization and neuroanatomical basis. ''Annual Review of Psychology'', ''54''(1), 55–89. *Martin, R. C. (2005). Components of short-term memory and their relation to language processing: Evidence from neuropsychology and neuroimaging. ''Current Directions in Psychological Science'', ''14''(4), 204–208. * Martin, R. C., & He, T. (2004). Semantic short-term memory and its role in sentence processing: A replication. ''Brain and Language'', ''89''(1), 76–82. * Martin, R. C., Lesch, M. F., & Bartha, M. C. (1999). Independence of input and output phonology in word processing and short-term memory. ''Journal of Memory and Language'', ''41''(1), 3-29. *Martin, R. C., Shelton, J. R., & Yaffee, L. S. (1994). Language processing and working memory: Neuropsychological evidence for separate phonological and semantic capacities. ''Journal of Memory and Language'', ''33''(1), 83–111.

References

External links

Personal website

T.L.L. Temple Neuroplasticity Lab
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Randi Living people Rice University faculty University of Oregon alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni 21st-century American psychologists American women psychologists Year of birth missing (living people) American women academics 21st-century American women