John Trueswell

John Trueswell is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and Co-Director of the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science (ILST). He leads the Language Learning Lab at the Department of Psychology, focusing on real-time language interpretation, acquisition, and processing dynamics.

• Collaborations with ILST faculty
• Behavioral experimentation
• Eye tracking
• Computational modeling
• fMRI

His interdisciplinary work connects Psychology, Linguistics, and Computer Science through Penn’s MindCORE initiative. Research spans cross-linguistic comparisons, developmental psycholinguistics, and individual differences in normal/clinical populations.

Recent publications analyze ambiguity detection, polysemy, event role encoding, and cross-situational learning. His work reveals processing-acquisition interdependencies and cognitive mechanisms shaping language structure.

• Fellow, Association for Psychological Science (APS)
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
• Grants: NSF and NIH

Dr. Trueswell has mentored language scientists across Psychology and Linguistics, with former advisees now at institutions like NYU, Harvard, and University of Florida. His lab integrates visual and linguistic data to decode moment-by-moment comprehension in children and adults.