Dr. Nils Tolksdorf | Heidelberg University
We’re excited to share that our workshop “Configuring Robot Roles for Children: Developmental, Communicative, and Ethical Dimensions Across Contexts and Domains” has been accepted for the 18th International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR 2026) in London.
Call for Participation: We invite ~300-word abstracts (empirical, theoretical, design, methodological, or work-in-progress). Submissions are due April 20, 2026, with notifications on April 27, 2026.
My research examines how children learn new words across repeated interactions, with a particular focus on how contextual recurrence and variability shape retention and generalization. Besides investigating children’s interactions with humans, I use social robots as a controlled methodological tool to systematically vary interactional conditions. Additionally, this work approaches word learning as a gradual, interactional, and goal-oriented process situated within a particular pragmatic context, rather than as a one-shot mapping process. In this process, children build meanings across interactions and partners. This includes asking which aspects of the context benefit learning, which promote flexible transfer, and how changing interaction partners affects children’s retrieval of learned words.
Key aspects of investigation include:
Tolksdorf, N. F. (2024). Wortlernen mit sozialen Robotern: Der Einfluss einer systematischen Variation des pragmatischen Rahmens auf das langfristige Lernen morphologisch komplexer Wörter von Vorschulkindern (1. Auflage). Narr Francke Attempto. https://www.narr.de/wortlernen-mit-sozialen-robotern-1145-1/
Tolksdorf, N. F., Hönemann, D., Viertel, F. E., & Rohlfing, K. J. (2022). Who is that?! Does changing the robot as a learning companion impact preschoolers’language learning? Proceedings of the 2022 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, 1069–1074. https://doi.org/10.5555/3523760.3523937
This line of research investigates the ethical dimensions of child–robot interaction. It focuses on the interplay between technology and interaction design, children’s developmental characteristics, the perspectives of stakeholders, and educational institutional environments – social contexts in which the application of social robots is considered.
Key aspects of investigation include:
Rohlfing, K. J., Altvater-Mackensen, N., Caruana, N., van den Berghe, R., Bruno, B., Tolksdorf, N. F., & Hanulíková, A. (2022). Social/dialogical roles of social robots in supporting children’s learning of language and literacy—A review and analysis of innovative roles. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 9(971749), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2022.971749
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, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-020-00622-3
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
Siebert, S., Tolksdorf, N. F., Rohlfing, K. J., & Zorn, I. (2019). Raising robotic natives?: Persuasive potentials of social robots in early education. The Journal of Communication and Media Studies, 4(4), 21–35. https://doi.org/10.18848/2470-9247/CGP/v04i04/21-35
For more information, take a look at a flash talk I gave at “DigitaleZukunft@OWL.” Congress to facilitate knowledge transfer with civil society actors. The talk focused on the potential of social robots in early childhood education. A recording of the event is available, including my talk, which starts at the 3:37:18.
My research investigates how children coordinate speech, gesture, gaze, timing, and other signals in interaction. Rather than treating communication as primarily verbal, this work examines multimodal behavior as a central mechanism through which children manage turn-taking, respond to contingency patterns, and adapt to different social partners and contexts.
Key aspects of investigation include:
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., & 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
Tykhonenko, V., Tolksdorf, N. F., & Rohlfing, K. J. (2024). How turn-timing can inform about becoming familiar with a task and its changes: A study of shy and less shy four-year-old children. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 46, 5904–5911. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/26b984sz#main
This work examines how children interact with embodied AI and social robots as learning and conversational partners. The focus is on dialogue design and variability in children’s interactions with such technologies. Across studies, I investigate how children can improve their language abilities with social robots and how they engage with them in social interactions, exploring how they approach them as social partners in developmentally meaningful ways, considering this in comparison to human–human interactions.
Key aspects of investigation include:
Hanulíková, A., Tolksdorf, N. F., & Kapp, S. (2026). Robot speech: How variability matters for child–robot interactions. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 12, 1725423. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2025.1725423
Rohlfing, K. J., Wildt, E., & Tolksdorf, N. F. (2024). Language learning with media and technology in (early) childhood. Dzieciństwo. Literatura i Kultura, 6(1), 35–69. https://doi.org/10.32798/dlk.1376
Tolksdorf, N. F. (2024). Wortlernen mit sozialen Robotern: Der Einfluss einer systematischen Variation des pragmatischen Rahmens auf das langfristige Lernen morphologisch komplexer Wörter von Vorschulkindern (1. Auflage). Narr Francke Attempto. https://www.narr.de/wortlernen-mit-sozialen-robotern-1145-1/
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
Below you can find a video (in German) that was realised in cooperation with the Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum and shows part of our work on using social robots in the area of language learning.
In my research, I examine how temperamental shyness influences children’s communicative behavior and learning in different social contexts and situations. Specifically, I explore how children coordinate and regulate their multimodal responses during interactions. Across assessment contexts, word-learning settings, and child–robot interactions, this work demonstrates that shyness is associated with context-sensitive patterns of multimodal behavior and adaptive processing.
Key aspects of investigation include:
If you are interested in more details about this work for a radio report, Dr. Franziska Viertel and I were interviewed about our research on shyness, a widespread temperamental characteristic, and how it can influence children’s interactive behavior in different contexts.
The podcast (in German) can be found here: Shy but confident – Strengthening introverted children