Morton Ann Gernsbacher

Professor
University of Wisconsin - Madison

Morton Ann Gernsbacher is Vilas Research Professor and Sir Frederic Bartlett Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is a specialist in autism and psycholinguistics and has written and edited professional and lay books and over 100 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on these subjects. She currently serves as co-editor of the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest and associate editor for Cognitive Psychology, and she has previously held editorial positions for Memory & Cognition and Language and Cognitive Processes. She was also president of the Association for Psychological Science in 2007.

From this contributor

Explore more from The Transmitter

New Stanford initiative aims to build digital twin of human brain

The effort, funded by private donors, seeks to train the model on a trove of MRI and magnetoencephalography data that scientists plan to collect over the next five years—but questions about its scientific utility and feasibility remain.

By Natalia Mesa
2 November 2026 | 0 min watch
Illustration of cake with genetic code inside.

The genome offers a recipe, not a blueprint, for the brain

During brain development, genes set the rules and turn the knobs; self-organization does much of the rest.

By Ila Fiete
2 November 2026 | 8 min read
Illustration of four faces of a rhesus macaque transitioning from opaque to transparent.

Autism research involving monkeys contends with uphill battle

Macaques and marmosets recapitulate the condition’s core traits better than mice can, but funding uncertainty and challenges at primate centers in the United States could make this work difficult to continue.

By Diana Kwon
2 November 2026 | 8 min read