Ph.D., 2010, University of Minnesota
Dr. Julie Markant is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Tulane University and a Faculty Associate in the Tulane Brain Institute. Dr. Markant’s research aims to understand the processes that support infants’ and children’s remarkably effective learning within our complex world. Her work focuses on foundational cognitive mechanisms that are available early in life, including selective attention mechanisms that mediate visual exploration of the environment and early learning mechanisms that allow for efficient information encoding. Dr. Markant uses a multi-method approach (behavioral, eye tracking, fNIRS/fMRI) to investigate neurobehavioral mechanisms linking these attention and learning systems from infancy to adulthood. Her work has demonstrated that 1) common neural systems may contribute to basic attention and learning skills in early development, 2) the development of endogenous selective attention control promotes enhanced learning efficacy, and 3) prior learning and experience facilitate efficient selective attention. The overall goals of this work are to understand how attention-learning interactions facilitate efficient learning in complex environments, support the emergence of more advanced cognition, and shape individual differences in learning outcomes.
You can learn from about Dr. Markant’s current work and the Learning and Brain Development Lab here: https://lbdlab.tulane.edu/.
Dr. Markant is currently accepting graduate students. Dr. Markant accepts graduate students from the Psychology, School Psychology, and Neuroscience Ph.D. programs.
Markant, J. & Scott, L.S. (2018). Attention and perceptual learning interact in the development of the other-race effect.Current Directions in Psychological Science,doi; 10.1177/0963721418769884
Markant, J., Worden, M.S., & Amso, D. (2015). Not all attention orienting is created equal: Recognition memory is enhanced when attention orienting involves distractor suppression. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. 120, 28 -40. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2015.02.006
Markant, J. & Amso, D. (2014). Leveling the playing field: Attention mitigates the effects of individual variability in intelligence. Cognition, 131(2), 195-204. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2014.01.006
Markant, J. & Amso, D. (2013). Selective memories: Infants’ encoding is enhanced in selection via suppression. Developmental Science, 16(6), 926-940. doi: 10.1111/desc.12084
