John Trueswell

Professor
BA, Cognitive Science, University of Rochester;
Ph.D., Psychology, University of Rochester
Office Location: 
Room 254, Levin Building, 425 S. University Ave.
Phone: 
215-898-0911
Research Interests: 
Developmental Psychology
Language and Communication
Memory and Learning
Sensation and Perception

 

Specific Research Areas: 

Word learning, grammar learning, and real-time language comprehension
 

Research Synopsis: 

I'm interested in word learning, grammar learning, and real-time language comprehension. In much of my research, I record the eye movements of children and adults while they hear spoken utterances hat describe the visual world around them.

 

Professor John Trueswell will not be considering new graduate students for admission for Fall 2024.

 

Selected Publications: 

Trueswell, J. C., Lin, Y., Armstrong, B., Cartmill, E. A., Goldin-Meadow, S., & Gleitman, L. R. (2016). Perceiving referential intent: Dynamics of reference in natural parent-child interactions. Cognition, 148, 117-135. Pozzan, L., & Trueswell, J.C. (2015). Revise and resubmit: How real-time parsing limitations influence grammar acquisition. Cognitive Psychology, 80, 73-108. Trueswell, J. C., Medina, T. N., Hafri, A., & Gleitman, L. R. (2013). Propose but verify: Fast mapping meets cross-situational word learning. Cognitive Psychology, 66(1), 126-156. Hafri, A., Papafragou, A., & Trueswell, J. C. (2013). Getting the Gist of Events: Recognition of Two-Participant Actions From Brief Displays. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 142(3), 880-905. Medina, T.N., Snedeker, J., Trueswell, J.C., & Gleitman, L.R. (2011). How words can and cannot be learned by observation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, 9014-9019. Papafragou, A., Hulbert, J. & Trueswell, J.C. (2008). Does language guide event perception? Evidence from eye movements.Cognition,108 (1), 155-184 Novick, J.M., Thompson-Schill, S. & Trueswell, J.C. (2008). Putting lexical constraints in context into the visual-world paradigm. Cognition, 107(3), 850-903. Kaiser, E. & Trueswell, J.C. (2004). The Role of discourse context in the processing of a flexible word-order language. Cognition, 94(2) 113-147. Snedeker, J. & Trueswell, J.C. (2004). The developing constraints on parsing decisions: The role of lexical-biases and referential scenes in child and adult sentence processing. Cognitive Psychology, 49(3), 238-299. Trueswell, J.C., Sekerina, I., Hill, N.M. & Logrip, M.L. (1999). The kindergarten-path effect: studying on-line sentence processing in young children. Cognition, 73, 89-134.

Courses Taught: 

PSYC 151 Language and Thought
PSYC 600 (proseminar) Language

Appointments: 
Linguistics Graduate Group
 
Advisees: 
Alon Hafri [Psychology Graduate Student]
Lucia Pozzan [Research Associate]
Masha Fedzechkina [postdoc]