Art's primary research interests are in cognitive science, discourse processing, and the learning sciences. More specific interests include knowledge representation, question asking and answering, tutoring, text comprehension, inference generation, conversation, reading, problem solving, memory, emotions, computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and learning technologies with animated conversational agents. He has published over 700 articles in journals, books, and conference proceedings.
In 2010, Dr. Graesser received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award (Society for Text and Discourse) and in 2011 he received the Distinguished Contributions of Applications of Psychology to Education and Training Award (American Psychological Association). On February 28, 2012, Dr. Graesser received the first Presidential Award for Lifetime Achievement in Research from the University of Memphis. This award is the University’s highest level of research recognition given to its faculty. In 2018 he received the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education. In 2021 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Artificial Intelligence in Education.