--- title: "Michael C. Frank — author profile and papers" description: "Michael C. Frank, Stanford University: 2 papers on Elamur Research (2012–2024), h-index 61 — affiliations, topics, co-authors and who cites them in our…" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/michael-c-frank/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/michael-c-frank/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [authors](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/) / Michael C. Frank # Michael C. Frank Michael C. Frank studies how people understand and learn language, pairing formal computational models with experiments and corpus-based simulations. Their papers here ask how a listener works out what a speaker intends when the words alone leave the meaning open, and how children come to master language from far less input than artificial systems need. The work sits where [psycholinguistics & language acquisition](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/psycholinguistics/), [reasoning](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/reasoning/), and [language models & pretraining](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-models/) meet. It moves between tightly controlled games played by human participants and neural networks trained on transcripts of speech addressed to children. The most cited paper here is [Predicting Pragmatic Reasoning in Language Games](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/frank-2012-predicting-pragmatic-reasoning-language-games/) (2012), written with [Noah D. Goodman](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/noah-d-goodman/). It turns informal accounts of pragmatics into testable quantitative predictions. Participants viewed a few objects differing along two dimensions and wagered on which one a single word named. In the proposed account, comprehension is probabilistic inference. It weighs how salient each object is in context, measured independently with a separate group, against the expectation that speakers choose words that single out their target, with informativeness defined through surprisal. The newer direction carries questions about acquisition into machine learning. [Is Child-Directed Speech Effective Training Data for Language Models?](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/feng-2024-is-child-directed-speech-effective/) (2024), with [Steven Y. Feng](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/steven-y-feng/), builds GPT-2 and RoBERTa models without pretraining, using English CHILDES transcripts. It compares them with models trained on TinyDialogues, a synthetic corpus of matching size produced with GPT-4, and on subtitles, Wikipedia and the BabyLM mixture. Syntax is probed with the Zorro benchmark and meaning with word-similarity tests. The study also checks whether ordering conversations by the child's age makes a difference. Frank is based at [Stanford University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/stanford-university/), and earlier papers also carry the [Massachusetts Institute of Technology](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/massachusetts-institute-of-technology/). Michael C. Frank has 2 papers in our library, in 2012–2024, most of them on [Language models & pretraining](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-models/), [Reasoning](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/reasoning/), [Psycholinguistics & language acquisition](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/psycholinguistics/); often with [Noah D. Goodman](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/noah-d-goodman/), [Steven Y. Feng](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/steven-y-feng/). 2 papers in our library · 2012–2024 current affiliation [Stanford University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/stanford-university/) · Stanford United States [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/A5103234894) · [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7551-4378) · [Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16729083) · [**h-index 61**](https://openalex.org/authors/A5103234894) · [505 works](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5103234894) · [16,123 citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5103234894&sort=cited_by_count:desc) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14 [2 works in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/michael-c-frank/#papers) · [347 citations in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/michael-c-frank/cited-by/) · 6 more works in our library · [⭐ Paper Star rank #1962](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/paper-stars/page/20/#star-1962) The profile is the library's match of the name; two people with one name are not always told apart. Elsewhere: [Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=search_authors&mauthors=Michael+C.+Frank) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=Michael+C.+Frank) · [dblp](https://dblp.org/search?q=Michael+C.+Frank) · [ACL Anthology](https://aclanthology.org/search/?q=Michael+C.+Frank) ## Affiliations [🎓**Stanford University** Stanford · United States 2003–2026 · 378 papers*current**employment from 2010 (Wikidata)*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/stanford-university/) · [🎓**Massachusetts Institute of Technology** Cambridge · United States 2006–2025 · 22 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/massachusetts-institute-of-technology/) · [🎓**Concordia University** Montreal · Canada 2023–2024 · 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/concordia-university/) · [🎓**University of British Columbia** Vancouver · Canada 2023–2024 · 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-british-columbia/) · [🎓**University of California San Diego** San Diego · United States 2021–2024 · 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-california-san-diego/) · [🎓**University of Manitoba** Winnipeg · Canada 2023–2024 · 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-manitoba/) · [🎓**University of Ottawa** Ottawa · Canada 2021 · 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-ottawa/) 🏛️**Hunter College High School** Manhattan · United States *education (Wikidata)* From the bylines of their papers (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14), ORCID and Wikidata; institutions on papers are matched by machine. 11 more institutions on single bylines are not listed. ## Topics [Language models & pretraining 1](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-models/) · [Reasoning 1](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/reasoning/) · [Psycholinguistics & language acquisition 1](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/psycholinguistics/) ## Works by year ### 2020s [**2024** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/feng-2024-is-child-directed-speech-effective/) ### 2010s [**2012** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/frank-2012-predicting-pragmatic-reasoning-language-games/) ## Papers The most cited first (OpenAlex and our library). 1. **[Predicting Pragmatic Reasoning in Language Games](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/frank-2012-predicting-pragmatic-reasoning-language-games/)** *(2012 · 1,007 citations)* People often understand what a speaker means even when the words alone are ambiguous. Theories of pragmatics explain this informally, but few make precise, testable predictions. Frank and Goodman address this with very simple reference games. Participants see a small set of objects that vary along two dimensions and… 2. **[Is Child-Directed Speech Effective Training Data for Language Models?](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/feng-2024-is-child-directed-speech-effective/)** *(2024 · 16 citations)* Children acquire language after hearing thousands of times fewer words than modern language models require. ## Also in our library 6 more works of theirs are in our library without a page here yet; they will appear as we publish them. ## Co-authors here 2 co-authors with a page, the most papers together first. - [Noah D. Goodman](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/noah-d-goodman/) ×2 - [Steven Y. Feng](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/steven-y-feng/) ## Cited by Papers of our library cite their works 347 times (of the 140,884 papers whose bibliographies we read); [40 citing papers with a page here →](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/michael-c-frank/cited-by/).