Media

My research has been provided in a number of media outlets.
  • While a doctoral student at the University of Rochester, my research on infant eye-movements was features on ABC News (story developed by the Science and Technology News Network). Click here to see me with long hair!
  • In 2007 I was interviewed for an excellent piece in the NY Times on infant eye-movements.

Curriculum Vitae

My complete CV can be found here. (read at your own risk).


Selected Papers

Some of my most important papers are listed below. A complete list (including downloadable PDF's and supplementary material) can be found on the MACLab site, or in my CV.

Or, since website are notoriously hard to keep up to date, you might check my profiles at Google Scholar or ResearchGate profiles, both of which include downloadable copies of many of my papers.

    Speech Perception and Spoken Word Recognition

  • Toscano, J. C., Anderson, N. D., & McMurray, B. (2013). Reconsidering the role of temporal order in spoken word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 20, 1-7.
  • McMurray, B. & Jongman, A. (2011) What information is necessary for speech categorization? Harnessing variability in the speech signal by integrating cues computed relative to expectations. Psychological Review, 118(2), 219-246.
  • Toscano, J., McMurray, B., Dennhardt, J., & Luck, S. (2010) Continuous perception and graded categorization: Electrophysiological evidence for a linear relationship between the acoustic signal and perceptual encoding of speech. Psychological Science, 21(10), 1532-1540.
  • Toscano, J., and McMurray, B. (2010) Cue Integration with Categories: A Statistical Approach to Cue Weighting and Combination in Speech Perception. Cognitive Science, 34(3), 436-464.
  • McMurray, B., Tanenhaus, M.K., and Aslin, R.N. (2009) Within-category VOT affects recovery from "lexical" garden paths: Evidence against phoneme-level inhibition Journal of Memory and Language, 60(1), 65-91
  • McMurray, B., Clayards, M., Tanenhaus, M., and Aslin, R. (2008) Tracking the timecourse of phonetic cue integration during spoken word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 15(6), 1064-1071.
  • McMurray, B., Aslin, R., Tanenhaus, M., Spivey, M., and Subik, D. (2008). Gradient sensitivity to within-category variation in speech: Implications for categorical perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology, Human Perception and Performance, 34(6), 1609-1631
  • Magnuson, J., McMurray, B., Tanenhaus, M. and Aslin, R. (2003). Lexical effects on compensation for coarticulation: The ghost of Christmash past. Cognitive Science, 27(2), 285-298.
  • McMurray, B., Tanenhaus, M., and Aslin, R. (2002). Gradient effects of within-category phonetic variation on lexical access, Cognition, 86(2), B33-B42.
  • Individual Differences and Communication Disorders

  • McMurray, B., Munson++, C. and Tomblin, J.B. (in press) Individual differences in spoken word recognition: A perceptual or lexical locus? Journal of Speech Language Hearing Research
  • Farris-Trimble+++, A., McMurray, B., Cigrand+, N. and Tomblin, J.B. (in press) The process of spoken word recognition in the face of signal degradation: Cochlear implant users and normal-hearing listeners. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
  • Farris-Trimble, A., and McMurray, B. (2013) The reliability of eye tracking in the Visual World Paradigm for the study of individual differences in real-time spoken word recognition. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 56, 1328-1345
  • McMurray, B., Samelson, V., Lee, S., and Tomblin, J.B. (2010) Individual differences in online spoken word recognition: Implications for SLI. Cognitive Psychology, 60(1), 1-39.
  • Development of Speech Perception and Word Recognition

  • Apfelbaum, K., & McMurray, B. (2011) . Using Variability to Guide Dimensional Weighting: Associative Mechanisms in Early Word Learning. Cognitive Science, 35(6), 1105-1138.
  • Rost, G.C., and McMurray, B. (2010) Finding the signal by adding noise: The role of non-contrastive phonetic variability in early word learning. Infancy, 15(6), 608-635.
  • Rost, G., and McMurray, B. (2009) Speaker variability augments phonological processing in early word learning. Developmental Science, 12(2), 339-349
  • McMurray, B., and Aslin, R.N. (2005) Infants are sensitive to within-category variation in speech perception. Cognition, 95/2, B15-B26.
  • Word Learning

  • McMurray, B., Horst, J., and Samuelson, L. (2012) Word learning emerges from the interaction of online referent selection and slow associative learning. Psychological Review, 119(4), 831-877
  • Horst, J.S., Samuelson, L.K., Kucker, S. & McMurray, B. (2011) What’s new? Children prefer novelty in referent selection. Cognition, 118(2), 234-244.
  • McMurray, B. (2007) Defusing the childhood vocabulary explosion. Science
  • General Development

  • Blumberg, M. S., Coleman, C., Gerth, A. I., & McMurray, B. (2013). Spatiotemporal structure of REM sleep twitching reveals developmental origins of motor synergies. Current Biology
  • McMurray, B. and Aslin, R.N. (2004). Anticipatory eye movements reveal infants’ auditory and visual categories. Infancy, 6(2), 203-229.
  • Spencer, J., Blumberg, M., McMurray, B., Robinson, S., Samuelson, L., and Tomblin, J.B. (2009) Short arms and talking eggs: Why we should no longer abide the nativist-empiricist debate. Child Development Perspectives, 3(2), 79-87.
  • Phonetics

  • Beckman, J., Helgason, P., McMurray, B. & Ringen, C. (2011) Rate Effects on Swedish VOT: Evidence for Phonological Overspecification. Journal of Phonetics, 39, 39-49.
  • Cole, J.S., Linebaugh, G., Munson, C., and McMurray, B. (2010) Unmasking the acoustic effects of vowel-to-vowel coarticulation: A statistical modeling approach. Journal of Phonetics, 38(2), 167-184.
  • Reading

  • Apfelbaum, K., Hazeltine, E., & McMurray, B. (2013) Statistical learning in reading: Variability in irrelevant letters helps children learn phonics rules. Developmental Psychology, 49(7), 1348-
  • Other Domains of Cognition/Perception

  • Huette, S., and McMurray, B. (2010) Continuous dynamics of color categorization. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17(3), 348-354.
  • McMurray, B., Dennhardt, J., and Struck-Marcell, A. (2008) Context effects on musical chord categorization: Different forms of top-down feedback in speech and music? Cognitive Science, 32(5), 893 – 920.

Recent Talks and Presentations

I give a lot of talks and presentations to various groups. A complete list can be found on my CV. Below are several recent talks for which people have requested my slides. They're organized roughly by topic


Page maintained by Bob McMurray
Last updated on 11/1/03