Morton Ann Gernsbacher, Vilas Research Professor and Sir Frederic C. Bartlett Professor of Psychology, has been awarded the internationally renowned Oswald Külpe Prize for her outstanding work on cognitive processing.
Presented biennially by the Institute of Psychology at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg since 2005, the prize celebrates exceptional contributions to experimental research on higher mental processes.
“We are honoring her outstanding and highly influential research on language comprehension, which explores the metaphor of comprehension as structure formation,” said Professor Tobias Richter, Chair of Psychology IV at JMU, during the award ceremony on November 28, 2025.
Gernsbacher’s work has shaped the field of cognitive psychology and earned her numerous accolades, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science, the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for Text and Discourse, and election as Fellow of the Society for Experimental Psychologists, the American Psychological Association, the American Educational Research Association, and the American Association for the Advance of Science.
Her research in the fields of language processing and autism continues to inspire scholars worldwide and advance our understanding of how humans attend, communicate, and interact.