Anne Cutler

{{Short description|Australian psycholinguist and educator (1945–2022)}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Anne Cutler

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=AUS|FRS|FBA|FASSA|MAE|size=100}}

| birth_name = Elizabeth Anne Cutler

| image = Anne-Cutler-FRS.jpg

| image_size =

| alt =

| caption = Cutler in 2015

| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1945|1|17}}

| birth_place = Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

| death_date = {{death date and age |2022|6|7|1945|1|17|df=yes}}

| death_place = Nijmegen, the Netherlands

| fields = Psycholinguistics

| workplaces = {{Plainlist|

| alma_mater = University of Texas at Austin (PhD)

| thesis_title = Sentence stress and sentence comprehension

| thesis_url = https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/27475801

| thesis_year = 1975

| awards = Spinoza Prize (1999)
Member of the National Academy of Sciences (2008)
Fellow of the Royal Society (2016)
Fellow of the British Academy (2020)

| website = {{URL|mpi.nl/people/cutler-anne}}

}}

Elizabeth Anne Cutler FRS FBA FASSA ({{birth date|1945|1|17|df=yes}} – {{death date|2022|6|7|df=yes}}) was an Australian psycholinguist, who served as director emeritus of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. A pioneer in her field, Cutler's work focused on human listeners' recognition and decoding of spoken language. Following her retirement from the Max Planck Institute in 2012, she took a professorship at the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University.

Early life and education

Elizabeth Anne Cutler was born on 17 January 1945 in Armadale, Victoria.{{Who's Who | title=Cutler, Prof. (Elizabeth) Anne| id =U284105| year = 2016 | edition = online Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|author=Anon|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U284105}}{{Cite web|title=Cutler, Anne|url=https://www.mpg.de/372235/psycholinguistik_wissM|access-date=1 November 2021|website=mpg.de|language=en|archive-date=1 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211101030805/https://www.mpg.de/372235/psycholinguistik_wissM|url-status=live}} She attended the University of Melbourne, and in 1964 received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and German. Two years later she received her Diploma of Education in Modern Languages, and in 1971 received her master's degree in German linguistics.{{citation|title=Curriculum Vitae|first=Anne|last=Cutler|date=August 2020|url=https://www.mpi.nl/sites/default/files/2020-08/CutlerCVaugust2020.pdf|access-date=8 June 2022|archive-date=8 June 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220608195837/https://www.mpi.nl/sites/default/files/2020-08/CutlerCVaugust2020.pdf|url-status=live}} Cutler embraced psycholinguistics when it emerged as an independent field, going on to complete her PhD in the discipline at the University of Texas at Austin with her dissertation Sentence stress and sentence comprehension.{{cite thesis |degree=PhD |first=Anne|last=Cutler |title=Sentence stress and sentence comprehension |publisher=University of Texas at Austin |year=1975 |oclc=27475801|id={{ProQuest|302785728}}}}

Career and research

After postdoctoral research fellowships at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Sussex, she worked as a research scientist at the Medical Research Council (United Kingdom) (MRC) Applied Psychology Unit at the University of Cambridge. Subsequently she became Professor of Comparative Psycholinguistics at Radboud University. In 1993, she became a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and held that title until 2012.{{Cite web|title=Anne Cutler|url=https://www.mpi.nl/people/cutler-anne|access-date=13 September 2023|website=mpi.nl|archivedate=23 March 2023|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230323074210/https://www.mpi.nl/people/cutler-anne}}

Her research, summarised in the book Native Listening,{{cite book|first=Anne|last=Cutler|year=2012|title=Native Listening|isbn=9780262017565|publisher=MIT Press|url=https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/native-listening|access-date=8 June 2022|archive-date=8 June 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220608203622/https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/native-listening|url-status=live}} centres on human listeners' recognition of spoken language, and in particular on how the brain's processes of decoding speech are shaped by language-specific listening experience.

=Awards and honours=

Cutler was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2015 for her work on sentence processing and phoneme recognition.{{cite web|author=The Royal Society|year=2015|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117101048/https://royalsociety.org/people/anne-cutler-11296 |archivedate=17 November 2015 |url=https://royalsociety.org/people/anne-cutler-11296 |publisher=The Royal Society|location=London |title=Professor Anne Cutler FRS|url-status=live|access-date=8 June 2022 }}{{cite web|author=The Royal Society|publisher=The Royal Society|location=London|date=2015|title=Professor Anne Cutler FRS|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150502131109/https://royalsociety.org/people/fellowship/2015/anne-cutler/|archive-date=2 May 2015|url-status=deviated|url=https://royalsociety.org/people/fellowship/2015/anne-cutler/|access-date=8 June 2022}} Cutler was elected as Foreign Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2007{{Cite web|title=Academy of Europe: Cutler Anne|url=https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Cutler_Anne|access-date=31 October 2021|website=ae-info.org|archive-date=31 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211031081952/https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Cutler_Anne|url-status=live}} and Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences in 2008.{{Cite web|title=E. Anne Cutler|url=http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/20017263.html|access-date=31 October 2021|website=nasonline.org|archive-date=31 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211031081952/http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/20017263.html|url-status=live}} In Australia, she was elected as Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2008{{Cite web|title=Fellows: Anne Cutler|url=https://www.humanities.org.au/fellows/fellows/?find_contact_id=2942|url-status=dead|access-date=8 June 2022|website=Australian Academy of the Humanities|language=en-AU|archive-date=4 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221004010433/https://www.humanities.org.au/fellows/fellows/?find_contact_id=2942}} and as Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2009.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=14 October 2019|title=Academy Fellow: Professor Anne Cutler FASSA, FRS|url=https://socialsciences.org.au/academy-fellow/?sId=0032v000033l9MXAAY|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191211042314/https://socialsciences.org.au/academy-fellow/?sId=0032v000033l9MXAAY |archive-date=11 December 2019 |access-date=5 October 2020|website=Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia|language=en-US}}

In 2000 Cutler was elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.{{cite web |url=https://www.knaw.nl/en/members/members/4003 |title=Anne Cutler |publisher=Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences |accessdate=26 July 2015 |archive-date=22 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222115926/https://www.knaw.nl/en/members/members/4003 |url-status=dead }} Her work has also received the 1999 Spinoza Prize of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research{{cite web |url=http://www.nwo.nl/en/research-and-results/programmes/spinoza+prize/spinoza+laureates/overview+by+year/1999 |title=NWO Spinoza Prize 1999 |publisher=Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research |date=11 September 2014 |accessdate=30 January 2016 |archive-date=16 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160316005430/http://www.nwo.nl/en/research-and-results/programmes/spinoza+prize/spinoza+laureates/overview+by+year/1999 |url-status=dead }} and the International Speech Communication Association Medal. In 2020 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA){{Cite web|title=Professor Anne Cutler FBA|url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/anne-cutler-fba/|access-date=31 October 2021|website=thebritishacademy.ac.uk|publisher=The British Academy|author=Anon|year=2020|language=en|archive-date=31 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211031030155/https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/anne-cutler-fba/|url-status=live}} and she received the Silver Medal in Speech Communication from the Acoustical Society of America (ASA).{{Cite journal|last=Moran|first=Elaine|date=1 October 2020|title=Acoustical News|journal=The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America|volume=148|issue=4|pages=2100–2122|doi=10.1121/10.0001999|bibcode=2020ASAJ..148.2100. |s2cid=226244283 |issn=0001-4966|doi-access=free}}