I am a researcher in the area of children's language development and learning with digital technologies. I completed my Ph.D. within the Digital Society Research Program, funded by the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Katharina Rohlfing. My research lies at the intersection of psycholinguistics and child–robot interaction, with a focus on language learning. I am experienced in language acquisition research, with a particular focus on multimodality, cross-situational word learning, and pragmatics. Regarding social robotics, my experience focuses on dialogue design, ethical and child-oriented implementation of the technology, and how temperamental traits influence children's interaction behavior with social robots.

Research Interests:

• Early language development, preschoolers' acquisition of words
• Multimodal turn taking
• Individual differences; shyness
• Language learning with social robots
• Social robotics
• Child oriented dialogue design

Projekt CULSHY (2023 – ): Cross-cultural studies on shyness: Experimental studies on gesture production of school-aged children and their nonverbal communicative behavior in a child-robot interaction

PIs:
Prof. Dr. Katharina Rohlfing (UPB)
Prof. Dr. Kazuki Sekine (Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan)

Project members:
Dr. Nils Tolksdorf
Dr. Angela Grimminger

Project merits (2018–2022): Early childhood media interaction and language learning with social robots to promote participation opportunities in the digital society

In this project, child-robot interaction is investigated from the perspectives of media pedagogy and psycholinguistics: How to design a child-oriented dialogue? Can preschoolers' language development benefit longitudinally from an interaction with a robot? What do kindergarten teachers expect from a child-robot interaction? The project addresses the need to introduce digital technology to children in order to foster equality in digital society.

Link to the project website​.

PIs:
Prof. Dr. Katharina Rohlfing (UPB)

Prof. Dr. Isabel Zorn

Project members:

Dr. Nils Tolksdorf

Dr. Scarlet Schaffrath

Selected publications:

• Tolksdorf, N. F., Siebert, S., Zorn, I., Horwath, I., & Rohlfing, K. J. (2021). Ethical considerations of applying robots in kindergarten settings: Towards an approach from a macroperspective. International Journal of Social Robotics, 13(2), 129–140. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-020-00622-3
• Tolksdorf, N. F., Crawshaw, C. E., & Rohlfing, K. J. (2021). Comparing the effects of a different social partner (social robot vs. Human) on children’s social referencing in interaction. Frontiers in Education, 5(569615), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2020.569615
• Tolksdorf, N. F., Viertel, F. E., & Rohlfing, K. J. (2021). Do shy preschoolers interact differently when learning language with a social robot? An analysis of interactional behavior and word learning. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 8(676123), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.676123
• Tolksdorf, N. F., & Mertens, U. (2020). Beyond words: Children’s multimodal responses during word learning with a robot. In K. J. Rohlfing & C. Müller-Brauers (Eds.), International perspectives on digital media and early literacy: The impact of digital devices on learning, language acquisition and social interaction (pp. 90–102). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/beyond-words-nils-tolksdorf-ulrich-mertens/e/10.4324/9780429321399-7
• Tolksdorf, N. F., & Rohlfing, K. J. (2020). Parents’ views on using social robots for language learning. 2020 29th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), 634–640. https://doi.org/10.1109/RO-MAN47096.2020.9223540