Dr. Nils Frederik Tolksdorf

Institut für Germanistik und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft » Germanistische und Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft

Research Associate

E-Mail:
nils.tolksdorf@uni-paderborn.de
Phone:
+49 5251 60-5705
ORCID:
0000-0001-6093-1219
Web:
Homepage
Office Address:
Technologiepark 21
33100 Paderborn
Room:
TP21.2.05
Office hours:

nach Vereinbarung

About Nils Frederik Tolksdorf

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.

Publications

Latest Publications

Preschoolers' Interactions with Social Robots: Investigating the Potential for Eliciting Metatalk and Critical Technological Thinking

N.F. Tolksdorf, E. Wildt, K. Rohlfing, in: Companion of the 2024 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, ACM, 2024, pp. 1053–1057.

DOI

Social/dialogical roles of social robots in supporting children’s learning of language and literacy—A review and analysis of innovative roles

K. Rohlfing, N. Altvater-Mackensen, N. Caruana, R. van den Berghe, B. Bruno, N.F. Tolksdorf, A. Hanulíková, Frontiers in Robotics and AI 9 (2022).

DOI

Who is that?! Does Changing the Robot as a Learning Companion Impact Preschoolers’Language Learning?

N.F. Tolksdorf, D. Hönemann, F.E. Viertel, K. Rohlfing, in: Proceedings of the 2022 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 2022, pp. 1069–1074.

DOI

Comparing the Effects of a Different Social Partner (Social Robot vs. Human) on Children's Social Referencing in Interaction

N.F. Tolksdorf, C.E. Crawshaw, K.J. Rohlfing, Frontiers in Education (2021).

DOI

Do Shy Children Keep more Distance from a Social Robot? Exploring Shy Children’s Proxemics with a Social Robot or a Human

N.F. Tolksdorf, F.E. Viertel, C.E. Crawshaw, K.J. Rohlfing, in: Interaction Design and Children, 2021.

DOI

Show all publications

Teaching


Current Courses

  • Typisches und atypisches Timing in Interaktion
  • Einführung in die Germanistische Sprachwissenschaft (G/SP)

Further Information

Research projects

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

Research focus

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