Education

1981-1986 University of California, Los Angeles:  Ph.D., Psychology
Major:  Cognitive Psychology;  Minors:  Quantitative, Linguistics (Phonetics/Phonology)

1978-1981 University of Texas, Austin:  B.A. in Plan II, an interdisciplinary honors program

Employment History

2023-present Donald P. Hayes Professor, Emerit, University of Wisconsin-Madison

2012-2023 Donald P. Hayes Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

2001-2023 Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

2019-2023 Affiliate Faculty, Program in Language Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison

2014-2015 Hilgard Visiting Professor, Department of Psychology, Stanford University

2007-2008 Visiting Researcher, Laboratoire Parole et Langage, Université de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France

2000-2001 Professor, Department of Psychology, Department of Linguistics, & Neuroscience Program, University of Southern California

1995-2000 Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Department of Linguistics, & Neuroscience Program, University of Southern California

1992-1995 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Department of Linguistics, & Neuroscience Program, University of Southern California

1991-1992 Visiting Assistant Professor, Departments of Linguistics and Psychology, University of Southern California

1989-1992 Assistant Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

1988-1989 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Northeastern University

1987-1988 Postdoctoral position with Patricia Carpenter and Marcel Just, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University.  

1986-1987 Postdoctoral Position, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University

Summer, 1986 Visiting Lecturer, Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles

Honors 

Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society, 2015

Distinguished Honors Faculty Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2014 (a teaching award from the College of Letters & Science Honors Program)

WARF Professorship (Donald P. Hayes Professor) University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2012

Leon Epstein Faculty Fellow, College of Letters and Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2011

Kellett Mid-Career Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006

Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, 2005

University of Wisconsin-Madison Vilas Associates Award, 2002

Shepherd Ivory Franz Distinguished Teaching Award, Department of Psychology, UCLA, 1986

Phi Beta Kappa

BA completed in three years, summa cum laude, with Special Honors in Psychology, University of Texas, Austin, 1981

Grants

My research was generously funded by the National Science Foundation, several institutes at the National Institutes of Health (NICHD, NIMH, NIA), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, including the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute, and the College of Letters and Sciences.

Selected Activities and Service

Organizer, 10th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing (now called HSP), Los Angeles, 1997

Organizer, USC Speech Production Conference, 1999

Associate Editor, Cognitive Science, 2015-2017

Glushko Dissertation Prize Selection Committee, Cognitive Science Society, 2012-2014

Associate Editor, Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory & Cognition, 2002-2005

Guest Editor, Language and Cognitive Processes, special issue on Lexical Representations in Sentence Processing, 1997

Editorial boards and reviews for journals, reviews and grant panel member for funding institutions, reviews for presses

Selected Media and Interviews

Talks & Interviews

Planet Word Museum, Washington, DC. “What’s Next in the Science of Reading?” with Mark Seidenberg and Emily Hanford, March, 2025.

Lunch and Lit/Right to Read, “Book Language,” April 2024.

Talk to the Kiwanis Club of Downtown Madison, Language & the Aging Brain. January, 2022.

TalkTogether Project, “How do production goals influence language?” Virtual Roundtable on development of children’s print corpora. Oxford University, Department of Education, July, 2021.

January, 2021 University of the Air, Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), September, 9, 2021. “Talk is NOT Cheap.” Hour-long interview on my work. 

NBC15 evening news, Madison, WI, June 10, 2021, interview on cognitive consequences of the pandemic.

Badger Talks Video, September 22, 2020, “How to Talk to One Another While Wearing Masks”

Central Time, Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), July, 2018, interview on foreign language learning

Perpetual Notion Machine (a science talk show), WORT Madison Community Radio, April, 2018.

Articles for General Audiences

Op-Ed, Capital Times, March 17, 2021, “We Can Learn to Talk to Each Other with Masks On”

An article for children about learning a second language. Rojas, C. E., Hopman, E. W. M., & MacDonald, M. C. (2020). How can you get better at learning a foreign language? Frontiers for Young Minds, 8, 42.

Print Media About My Work

An article about my work on reading and emotion, Sift & Winnow, UW Letters and Science Magazine, July, 2021. “Bookworms can ‘read’ people too.”

Article on my work on speaking and language learning in the English Language Gazette: “Krash ‘n’ burn: Does this study disprove famous language learning theory?” July 11, 2018.

Article in UW-Madison News, “How talking more can make you better at listening – to foreign languages,” April 11, 2018.

Selected Publications 

Books

MacDonald, M.C. (available June 3).  More than Words: How Talking Sharpens our Minds and Changes our World. Avery (Penguin Random House). Publication expected in 2025.

MacDonald, M.C. (Ed). (1997).  Lexical representations and sentence processing.  Hove, Sussex, UK:  Psychology Press.  (Published simultaneously as Issues 2-3 of the journal Language and Cognitive Processes).

Journal Articles

Jacobs, C. L., & MacDonald, M. C. (2024). Constraint satisfaction in large language models. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 39(10), 1231–1248.

Schwering, S.C. Jacobs, C.L., Montemayor, J. & MacDonald, M.C. (2023). Lexico-syntactic properties affect verbal working memory in sentence-like lists. Memory & Cognition

Schwering S.C. & MacDonald, M.C. (2023). Long term linguistic knowledge supports serial ordering in verbal working memory tasks. Open Mind, 7: 550–563.

Gussow A. & MacDonald, M.C. (2023). Repetition parallels in language and motor action: Evidence from tongue twisters and finger fumblers. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 152, 2775–2792.

Jacobs, C.L. & MacDonald, M.C. (2023). A chimpanzee by any other name: The contributions of utterance context and information density on word choice. Cognition, 230. 105265.

MacDonald, M.C. (2022). A computational model of language comprehension unites diverse perspectives. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(49), e2217108119.

Lebkuecher, A.L., Schwob, N., Kabasa, M., Gussow, A.E., MacDonald, M.C. & Weiss, D.J. (2022). Hysteresis in motor and language production. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.

Koranda, M.J., Zettersten, M. & MacDonald, M.C. (2022). Good enough production: Speakers choose easy words over more precise ones. Psychological Science. 33(9), 1440-14.

MacDonald, M. C., & Weiss, D. J. (2022). Easy does it: Sequencing explains the in-out effect. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 26(6), 447–448.

Beaty, R.E., Frieler, K., Norgaard, M., Merseal, H., MacDonald, M.C. & Weiss, D.J. (2022). Expert musical improvisations contain sequencing biases seen in language production. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 151, 912–920.  

Schwering, S. Ghaffari-Nikou, N., Niedenthal, P., & MacDonald, M.C. (2021). Exploring the relationship between fiction reading and emotion recognition. Affective Science, 2, 178-186.

Rojas, C. E., Hopman, E. W. M., & MacDonald, M. C. (2020). How can you get better at learning a foreign language? Frontiers for Young Minds, 8, 42.

Koranda M.J., Bulgarelli F., Weiss D.J. & MacDonald, M.C. (2020). Is language production planning emergent from action planning? A preliminary investigation. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1193.

Schwering, S. C., & MacDonald, M. C. (2020). Verbal working memory as emergent from language comprehension and production. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 14, 68.

Hopman, E.W.M., & MacDonald, M.C. (2018). Producing during language learning improves comprehension. Psychological Science, 29, 961–971.

Seidenberg, M.S. & MacDonald, M.C. (2018). The impact of language experience on language and reading: A statistical learning approach. Topics in Language Disorders, 38, 66-83.

Perry, L.K., Mech, E., MacDonald, M.C., & Seidenberg, M.S. (2018).  Influences of speech familiarity on immediate perception and final comprehension.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 25, 431-439. doi:10.3758/s13423-017-1297-5  

MacDonald, M.C. & Weiss, D.J. (2017). Structural priming, action planning, and grammar. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 40, 

Montag, J.L., Matsuki, K., Kim, J. & MacDonald, M.C. (2017). Language specific and language general motivations of production choices: A multi-clause and multi-language investigation.  Collabra: Psychology 3(1) 20.

Hsiao, Y. & MacDonald, M.C. (2016). Production predicts comprehension: Animacy effects in Mandarin relative clause processing.  Journal of Memory and Language. 89, 87-109. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2015.11.006 

MacDonald, M.C. (2016). Memory limitations and chunking are variable and cannot explain language structure.  Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, E84. doi:10.1017/S0140525X15000898

MacDonald, M.C. (2016).  Speak, act, remember:  The language-production basis of serial order and maintenance in verbal memory.  Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25, 47-53. DOI: 10.1177/0963721415620776  

MacDonald, M.C., Montag, J.L. & Gennari, S.P. (2016). Are there really syntactic complexity effects in sentence production? A reply to Scontras et al. (2015).  Cognitive Science, 40, 513-518. DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12255

Montag, J.L. & MacDonald, M.C. (2015). Text exposure predicts spoken production of complex sentences in eight and twelve-year old children and adults.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144, 447-468.

Willits, J., Amato, M.A., & MacDonald, M.C. (2015).  Language knowledge and event knowledge in language use.  Cognitive Psychology, 78, 1-27.

Brown, M., Sibley, D., Washington, J., Rogers, T.T., Edwards, J.R., MacDonald, M.C., & Seidenberg. M.S. (2015). Impact of dialect use on a basic component of learning to read. Frontiers in Psychology. 6:196. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00196 

Edwards, J., Gross, M., Chen, J., MacDonald, M.C., Kaplan, D., Brown, M., & Seidenberg, M.S. (2014). Dialect awareness and lexical comprehension of Mainstream American English in African American English-speaking children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 57, 1883-1895. doi:10.1044/2014_JSLHR-L-13-0228

Hsiao, Y., Gao, Y., & MacDonald M.C. (2014). Agent-patient similarity affects sentence structure in language production: Evidence from subject omissions in Mandarin. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1015. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01015 

Montag, J.L. & MacDonald, M.C. (2014). Visual salience modulates structure choice in relative clause production.  Language and Speech, 57, 163-180. doi:10.1177/0023830913495656

Hsiao, Y. & MacDonald, M.C. (2013).  Experience and generalization in a connectionist model of Mandarin Chinese relative clause processing.  Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 767. doi:10.3389/fpsyg. 2013.00767

Mirković, J. & MacDonald, M.C. (2013).  When singular and plural are both grammatical:  Semantic and morphophonological effects in agreement.  Journal of Memory and Language. 69, 277-298.

MacDonald, M.C. (2013). How language production shapes language form and comprehension.  Frontiers in Psychology, 4:226. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00226 

MacDonald, M.C. (2013). Production is at the left edge of the PDC but still central: Response to commentaries. Frontiers in Psychology, 4:227. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00227

Gennari, S.P., Mirković, J. & MacDonald, M.C. (2012). Animacy and competition in relative clause production: A cross-linguistic investigation. Cognitive Psychology, 65, 141-176.

Acheson, D.J. & MacDonald, M.C. (2011). The rhymes that the reader perused confused the meaning:  Phonological effects on on-line sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 65, 193-207.

Stallings, L.M. & MacDonald, M.C. (2011). It's not just the "Heavy NP":  Relative phrase length modulates the production of heavy-NP shift. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 40, 177-187. 

Acheson, D.J., MacDonald, M.C., & Postle, B.P. (2011). The effect of concurrent semantic categorization on delayed serial recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory & Cognition. 31, 44-59.

Amato, M. & MacDonald, M.C. (2010). Sentence processing in an artificial language:  Learning and using combinatorial constraints.  Cognition, 116, 143-148.

Acheson, D.J., Postle, B.P. & MacDonald, M.C. (2010).  The interaction of concreteness and phonological similarity in verbal working memory.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 36, 17-36.

Haskell, T.R., Thornton, R., & MacDonald, M.C. (2010). Experience and grammatical agreement:  Statistical learning shapes number agreement production. Cognition, 114, 151-164.

Acheson, D.J. & MacDonald, M.C. (2009).  Twisting tongues and memories: Explorations of the relationship between language production and verbal working memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 60, 329-350.

Acheson, D.J. & MacDonald, M.C. (2009).  Verbal working memory and language production:  Common approaches to the serial ordering of verbal information. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 50-68.

Almor, A., Aronoff, J.M., MacDonald, M.C., Gonnerman, L.M. Kempler, D. Hintiryan, H., Hayes, U.L. & Andersen, E.S. (2009).  A common mechanism in verb and noun naming deficits in Alzheimer’s patients. Brain and Language, 111, 8-19.

Gennari, S.P. & MacDonald, M.C. (2009).  Linking production and comprehension processes: The case of relative clauses. Cognition, 111, 1-23.

Christiansen, M.H. & MacDonald, M.C. (2009). A usage-based approach to recursion in sentence processing. Language Learning, 59, 126-161.

MacDonald, M.C. & Thornton, R. (2009).  When language comprehension reflects production constraints:  Resolving ambiguities with the help of past experience.  Memory & Cognition, 37, 1177-1186. 

Wells, J.B., Christiansen, M.H., Race, D.S., Acheson, D.J., & MacDonald, M.C.  (2009).  Experience and sentence processing:  Statistical learning and relative clause comprehension. Cognitive Psychology, 58, 250-271.

Acheson, D.J., Wells, J.B., & MacDonald, M.C. (2008).  New and updated tests of print exposure and reading abilities in college students.  Behavior Research Methods, 40, 278–289. 

Gennari, S.P. & MacDonald, M.C. (2008).  Semantic indeterminacy and relative clause comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 58, 161-187.

Gennari, S. P., MacDonald, M. C., Postle, B. R., & Seidenberg, M. S. (2007).  Context-dependent interpretation of words:  Evidence for interactive neural processes. Neuroimage, 35, 1278-1286.

Seidenberg, M.S., MacDonald, M.C. & Haskell, T.R. (2007).  Semantics and phonology constrain compound formation.  The Mental Lexicon, 2, 287-312.

Dagerman, K.S., MacDonald, M.C., & Harm, M. (2006). Aging and the use of context in ambiguity resolution:  Complex changes from simple slowing.  Cognitive Science, 30, 311-345.

Gennari, S.P. & MacDonald, M.C. (2006). Acquisition of negation and quantification:  Insights from adult production and comprehension.  Language Acquisition, 13, 125-168.

Haskell, T. & MacDonald, M.C. (2005). Constituent structure and linear order in language production: evidence from subject-verb agreement.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory & Cognition, 35, 891-904.

Mirković, J., MacDonald, M. C. and Seidenberg, M. S. (2005): Where does gender come from? Evidence from a complex inflectional system. Language and Cognitive Processes, 20, 139-167.

Haskell, T., MacDonald, M.C. & Seidenberg, M.S. (2003).  Language learning and innateness: Some implications of compounds research.  Cognitive Psychology, 47, 119-163. Reprinted in abridged form in 2010 in P. Griffiths, AJ. Merrison, & A. Bloomer (eds.) Language in use:  A reader.  London:  Routledge.

Haskell, T. & MacDonald, M.C. (2003).  Conflicting cues and competition in subject verb agreement. Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 760-778.

Thornton, R. & MacDonald, M.C. (2003). Plausibility and grammatical agreement.  Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 740-759.

Seidenberg, M.S. MacDonald, M.C., & Saffran, J.R. (2003).  Are there limits to statistical learning?  (Response to a Letter) Science, 300, 53-54.

Seidenberg, M.S. MacDonald, M.C., & Saffran, J.R. (2002).  Does grammar start where statistics stop?  Science, 298, 553-554.

MacDonald, M.C. & Christiansen, M.H. (2002).  Reassessing working memory:  A comment on Just & Carpenter (1992) and Waters & Caplan (1996). Psychological Review, 109, 35-54.

Almor, A., MacDonald, M.C., Kempler, D., Andersen, E.S., & Tyler, L.K. (2001).  Comprehension of long distance number agreement in probable Alzheimer’s Disease. Language and Cognitive Processes, 16, 35-63.

MacDonald, M.C., Almor, A., Henderson, V.W., Kempler, D., & Andersen, E.S. (2001).  Assessing working memory and language comprehension in Alzheimer’s Disease. Brain and Language, 78, 17-42. PMID: 11412013 

Thornton, R., MacDonald, M. C., & Arnold, J. E. (2000). The concomitant effects of phrase length and informational content in sentence comprehension.   Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 29, 195-203. 

Seidenberg, M.S. & MacDonald, M.C. (1999).  A probabilistic constraints approach to language acquisition and processing.  Cognitive Science, 23, 569-588.  

Thornton, R., MacDonald, M.C. & Gil, M. (1999).  Pragmatic constraint on the interpretation of complex noun phrases in Spanish and English. Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory & Cognition, 25, 1347-1365.

Almor, A., Kempler, D., MacDonald, M.C., Andersen, E.S., and Tyler, L.K. (1999). Why do Alzheimer patients have difficulty with pronouns?  Working memory, semantics, and reference in comprehension and production in Alzheimer's disease. Brain and Language.  67, 202-227. 

Christiansen, M.H. & MacDonald, M.C. (1999).  Fractionating linguistic working memory:  Even in pebbles, it’s still a soupstone.  Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 97-98.

Kempler, D., Almor, A. & MacDonald, M.C. (1998). Teasing apart the contribution of memory and language impairments in Alzheimer's disease:  An on-line study of sentence comprehension.  American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 7, 61-67.

Kempler, D., Almor, A., Tyler, L.K., Andersen, E.S., & MacDonald, M.C. (1998).  Sentence comprehension in Alzheimer's Disease:  A comparison of off-line vs. on-line sentence processing.  Brain and Language, 64, 297-316.

Stallings, L., MacDonald, M.C. & O'Seaghdha, P.G. (1998).  Phrasal ordering constraints in production:  Phrase length and verb disposition in heavy-NP shift.  Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 392-417.

Seidenberg, M.S., Petersen, A.S., MacDonald, M.C. & Plaut, D.C. (1996).  Pseudohomophone effects and models of word recognition.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory & Cognition. 22, 48-62.

Pearlmutter, N.J. & MacDonald, M.C. (1995).  Individual differences and probabilistic constraints in syntactic ambiguity resolution.  Journal of Memory and Language, 34, 521-542.

MacDonald, M.C. (1994).  Probabilistic constraints and syntactic ambiguity resolution.  Language and Cognitive Processes, 9, 157-201.

MacDonald, M.C., Pearlmutter, N.J. & Seidenberg, M.S. (1994). The lexical nature of syntactic ambiguity resolution.  Psychological Review, 101, 676-703.

Kurtzman, H.S. & MacDonald, M.C. (1993).  Resolving quantifier scope ambiguities.  Cognition, 48, 243-279.

MacDonald, M.C. (1993).  The interaction of lexical and syntactic ambiguity.  Journal of Memory and Language, 32, 692-715.

MacDonald, M.C., Just, M.A. & Carpenter, P.A. (1992).  Working memory constraints on the processing of syntactic ambiguity.  Cognitive Psychology, 24, 56-98.

MacDonald, M.C. & MacWhinney, B. (1990).  Measuring inhibition and facilitation effects from pronouns.  Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 469-492.

MacDonald, M.C. (1989).  Priming effects from gaps to antecedents.  Language and Cognitive Processes, 4, 35-56.

MacDonald, M.C. & Just, M.A. (1989).  Changes in activation levels with negation.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 633-642.