Research
Prof. Dr. Nicole Altvater-Mackensen holds the Chair of Psycholinguistics. In her research, she is interested how we learn, process and represent language. A focus of her research is early language acquisition and its neural correlates. She is particularly interested in the relation between speech perception and production, the interplay between language and other cognitive domains, the role of multimodal and social information in language learning, and the influence of bilingualism on language processing. Her research uses a broad range of behavioral and neurocognitive measures such as pupillometry, EEG and fNIRS with infants, toddlers and adults.
Biographic Information
She studied Linguistics, Philosophy and Psychology at Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf and received her PhD in Psycholinguistics from Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. After completing her graduate studies, she worked as postdoctoral researcher at the department of Psychology of Language at Georg-August-University Göttingen and the research group Early social development at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig. From 2017 to 2022, she was an assistant professor for Developmental Psychology at the Johannes-Gutenberg-University in Mainz. Since 2022, she has been Professor of Psycholinguistics at the University of Mannheim.
Publications
- Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2023). Sprachwahrnehmung im Säuglingsalter. Kindheit und Entwicklung, 32, 131–141.
- Schevenels, K., Altvater-Mackensen, N., Zink, I., De Smedt, B. and Vandermosten, M. (2023). Aging effects and feasibility of statistical learning tasks across modalities. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 30, 201–230.
- Rohlfing, K. J., Altvater-Mackensen, N., Caruana, N., Van den Berghe, R., Bruno, B., Tolksdorf, N. F. and 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, 2022, 1–15. - Hosemann, J., Mani, N., Herrmann, A., Steinbach, M. and Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2020). Signs activate their written word translation in deaf adults: An ERP study on cross-modal co-activation in German Sign Language. Glossa, 5, 1–25.
- Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2021). What are you looking at? Using eye tracking glasses to monitor toddler attention in natural learning situations. In , Proceedings of the 45th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Bd. 1 (S. 1–14). , Cascadilla Press: Somerville, MA.
- Regen, S., Müller, J. and Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2023). Gesture-sound priming in preverbal infants. 2nd Annual Doctoral Conference VDS CoBeNe PhD Academy, Vienna, Austria.
- Völker, J. M., Rosner, C. and Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2022). Positive maternal affect – but not dialogic reading style – correlates with toddlers’ language skills. Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development (BCCCD) 2022, Budapest, Hungary, Online.
- Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2021). Individual differences in attention during shared book reading predict learning of novel words in toddlers. Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development (BCCCD) 2021, Budapest, Hungary, Online.
- Kliesch, C., Maffongelli, L., Neumann, M.-T., Friederici, A., Paulus, M. and Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2021). A novel task to measure children’s planning of sequential and dependent actions. Budapest CEU Conference on Cognitive Development (BCCCD) 2021, Budapest, Hungary, Online.
- Rosner, C. and Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2021). Mummy, read to me! Maternal reading style modulates toddlers’ language skills. LCICD 2021, 6th Lancaster International Conference on Infant and Early Child Development, Lancaster, UK, Online.
- Vissers, F. M. H. G., Altvater-Mackensen, N., Fritzsche, T., Demuth, K. and Benders, T. (2021). A story-based pupillometry paradigm of determiner perception in children with and without hearing loss. ISoLDE 2021, 4th Infant Studies on Language Development in Europe (ISoLDE), Potsdam, Germany, Online.
- Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2020). Face or book: Does focus of attention during shared book reading predict word learning performance in toddlers? vICIS 2020, International Congress of Infant Studies 2020, Online.
- Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2020). What are you looking at? Using eye tracking glasses to monitor toddlers' attention in natural learning situations. vICIS 2020, International Congress of Infant Studies 2020, Online.
- Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2020). Word learning during shared book reading: Evidence from eye tracking. BUCLD 45, Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA, Online.
- Vissers, F., Altvater-Mackensen, N., Fritzsche, T., Demuth, K. and Benders, T. (2020). Does 27-month-olds’ processing of determiner omissions depend on prosodic context? A pupillometry study. Perspectives on Language in Children with Hearing Loss Workshop, Online.
- Missana, M., Altvater-Mackensen, N., Vaish, A. and Grossmann, T. (2019). Exploring the links between brain sensitivity to emotional vocalizations in infancy and empathy-related-behavior in toddlerhood. SRCD 2019 Biennial Meeting, Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, MD.
- Sander, J., Höhle, B., Altvater-Mackensen, N. and Noiray, A. (2019). Gaze dynamics during infants' vocal development. WILD 2019: Workshop on Infant Language Development, Potsdam, Germany.
- Wrzecziono, L., Wübbelmann, S., Maffongelli, L., Paulus, M. and Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2019). Exploring the relationship between syntax understanding, theory of mind and action planning in preschoolers. paEpsy 2019, 24. Tagung der Fachgruppe Entwicklungspsychologie, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie, Leipzig, Germany.
- Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2022). Neuropsychologische Grundlagen der frühen Sprachentwicklung. In Sprachförderung in Kindertagesstätten (S. 37–54). Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren.
- Altvater-Mackensen, N. and Meinhardt-Injac, B. (2021). Das psychologische Experiment. In Psychologische Forschungsmethoden in den Bildungswissenschaften : eine Einführung für Lehramtsstudierende (S. 123–142). Göttingen: Hogrefe.
- Altvater-Mackensen, N. (2020). Language learning. In Chapter 8, The Handbook of Listening (S. 121–137). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.