Background
Bever, Thomas Gordon was born on December 9, 1939 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Son of Michael Berliner and Marion (Gordon) Bever.
Psychology educator researcher
Bever, Thomas Gordon was born on December 9, 1939 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Son of Michael Berliner and Marion (Gordon) Bever.
Bever received a Bachelor of Arts in linguistics and psychology from Harvard University in 1961, and a Doctor of Philosophy in linguistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967. He studied with Noam Chomsky, George A. Miller, and Jean Piaget.
He has been a leading figure in psycholinguistics, focusing on the cognitive and neurological bases of linguistic universals, among other pursuits. He taught at Rockefeller University from 1967–1969, Columbia University from 1970–1986 (where he was involved with Project Nim), and the University of Rochester from 1985–1995, before accepting his current position at the University of Arizona, where he has remained ever since. Bever is notable for his study of garden path sentences such as The horse raced past the barn fell, as well as his analysis by synthesis model of sentence processing, developed with David Townsend.
In recent decades, Bever has studied the differences in language processing between righthanders with familial handedness and righthanders without left-handed relatives.
Member American Association of University Professors (vice president Rockefeller University chapter 1969-1970).
Married Judith Forester Farris, July 29, 1961 (divorced December 1976). Children— Frederick Wolfgang, Michael Gordon.
