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Joined 2026-09-21 Message
Incoming links: Michael K. Tanenhaus
Michael K. Tanenhaus 2026-11-05
Michael K. Tanenhaus is a researcher in psycholinguistics associated with the University of Rochester. Its directory identifies his interests in language and reading comprehension and his emeritus appointment in brain and cognitive sciences and linguistics.[ref]
Michael Tanenhaus in the University of Rochester directory. Tanenhaus, Michael K., appointment and research interests
With Michael Spivey, Kathleen M. Eberhard and Julie Sedivy, he developed experiments connecting eye tracking to interpretation of spoken instructions. Their 1995 study used real objects and a head-mounted tracker; varying the visible referents altered how a temporarily ambiguous instruction was interpreted.[ref]
Integration of Visual and Linguistic Information in Spoken Language Comprehension by Michael K. Tanenhaus and others. apparatus and one/two-referent conditions, pp.1632–1634
This visual world paradigm makes the time course of sentence comprehension experimentally accessible. A fixation is evidence about allocation of attention during a controlled task; it must be interpreted through the alternatives available to the participant.
https://www.sas.rochester.edu/bcs/people/index.html. University of Rochester directory
. Psycholinguistics 2026-11-05
Psycholinguistics investigates the mental processes involved in producing, understanding and learning language. It connects linguistic representations to observable behavior, including response times, errors and eye tracking. A grammatical description specifies possible structures; an experiment asks how a person processes a particular utterance as it unfolds.
Michael K. Tanenhaus and colleagues recorded eye movements with a head-mounted tracker while participants moved real objects following spoken instructions. In their apple experiment, the instruction “Put the apple on the towel in the box” was temporarily ambiguous: the towel phrase could identify an apple or its destination. Adding a second apple changed which interpretation the visual context supported, and the fixation patterns changed accordingly.[ref]
Integration of Visual and Linguistic Information in Spoken Language Comprehension by Michael K. Tanenhaus and others. Science 268,1632–1634; printed pp. 1633–1634, one/two-referent conditions and Figs. 1–3
This connects sentence comprehension to a timed behavioral measurement. The task supports an effect of visual context during processing; it does not make each fixation a direct readout of an isolated grammatical module.
Visual world paradigm 2026-11-05
The visual world paradigm investigates spoken language processing by recording eye tracking while a listener views a scene and hears an utterance. The timing and destinations of fixations provide evidence about which visible referents are being considered during sentence comprehension. The scene can contain real objects or displayed pictures.
In Michael K. Tanenhaus and colleagues' 1995 experiment, a head-mounted tracker recorded eye movements while listeners followed instructions to manipulate real objects. An instruction temporarily allowed a towel phrase to describe either an apple's location or a destination. Comparing scenes with one or two apples changed the referential usefulness of that phrase and affected interpretation.[ref]
Integration of Visual and Linguistic Information in Spoken Language Comprehension by Michael K. Tanenhaus and others. pp. 1632–1634, apparatus, one/two-referent conditions and Figs. 1–3
The crucial comparison holds much of the linguistic input constant while manipulating relevant visual context. Fixations require time to plan and execute, so they must be aligned with the utterance and interpreted through the task's alternatives. This makes the paradigm a controlled link between a theory of comprehension and a timed behavioral record.