معرفی
Douglas Martin serves as Head of School of Psychology and Senior Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen. He leads the School Executive, sits on the University Management Group, and participates in several university committees including Digital Strategy and Sustainability. His leadership extends to promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion across academic and societal contexts.
- MA in Psychology (2000), University of Aberdeen
- PhD in Psychology (2005), University of Aberdeen
As an experimental social psychologist, Martin's research focuses on social cognition, particularly how stereotypes form, evolve, and influence thoughts and behavior. His work examines social category information extraction from faces and the cultural evolution of stereotypes. He collaborates across disciplines, working with linguists on cultural evolution and computer scientists on AI bias. Martin co-leads the Person Perception Lab (www.personperceptionlab.org), which investigates how social biases manifest in human cognition and increasingly in AI systems.
His recent publications reveal a trajectory from foundational work on self-processing and attention toward contemporary concerns about social bias in AI. Martin's research demonstrates how stereotypes spontaneously re-emerge through cultural transmission and how human biases transfer to and from machine learning systems. These studies employ experimental models, large-scale cross-societal examinations, and cultural evolution paradigms to understand stereotype formation and persistence.
- AUSA and University of Aberdeen Excellence Award "Most Inspiring" (2023)
- College of Life Sciences and Medicine Teaching Excellence Award (2013)
Martin actively supervises PhD students and has secured significant research funding, including ESRC grants totaling over £400,000. His current projects include "Opening the black box: helping AI to persuade without bias" (ESRC PhD Studentship) and research on statistical learning in children's stereotype formation. Beyond traditional academic roles, Martin serves on the British Psychological Society's equality, diversity, and inclusion strategy board and previously worked with the Aberdeenshire Philosophy Café to disseminate psychological research to public audiences.
As co-leader of the Person Perception Lab, Martin directs research examining how social categories are processed from faces and how this processing influences social cognition. The lab's work has increasingly incorporated AI elements, investigating bidirectional bias transfer between humans and machines. Martin also maintains active collaborations with computing scientists and linguists, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary social psychology research.
