Nadja Althaus
Lecturer
School of Psychology, University of East Anglia
Norwich, UK
My research investigates language processing and development, using eye tracking and computational models (neural networks).
I am interested in phonology and speech processing, as well as the interface between language and object knowledge in word learning.
Current Projects
Information about some of my current and recent projects can be found on the PROJECTS page.
I'm a Visiting Researcher at the Language & Brain Lab, University of Oxford.
BlikSSt Project
With Gilbert Ambrazaitis (Linnæus-University Växjö, Sweden), Susan Sayehli (University of Stockholm, Sweden) and Anna Sara Hexeberg Romøren (OsloMet, Norway):
Project about the acquisition of focus prosody, investigating children's and adults' processing and production of contrastive focus in two dialects of Swedish that differ in saliency.
BLoCKS (Baby Language and Conceptual Knowledge Study)
With Teodora Gliga (UEA), Evelyne Mercure (Goldsmiths) and Marie Smith (Birkbeck) -- In this ESRC funded project we investigate the role of language in early
conceptual development in hearing and deaf infants.
Swedish embodied pronunciation training
New grant with Gilbert Ambrazaitis (PI, Linnæus-University Växjö, Sweden), Frida Splendido (University of Lund), Marieke Hoetjes (Radboud University), which will investigate whether gestures can help second language learners' acquisition of pronunciation.
Selected publications
Phonology / Psycholinguistics
Althaus, N., Kotzor, S., Schuster, S. & Lahiri, A. (2022). Distinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination: Vowel raising in Bengali verb inflections. Cognition, 222, 104963. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104963
Althaus, N., Wetterlin, A., & Lahiri, A. (2021). Features of low functional load in mono- and bilinguals’ lexical access: evidence from Swedish tonal accent. Phonetica. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/phon-2021-2002/html
Computational Models of Cognitive Development
Althaus, N., Gliozzi, V., Mayor, J., & Plunkett, K. (2020). Infant categorization as a dynamic process linked to memory. Royal Society Open Science, 7(10). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.200328
Althaus, N., & Mareschal, D. (2013). Modeling Cross-Modal interactions in early word learning. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development, 5(4), 288–297. https://doi.org/10.1109/TAMD.2013.2264858
Cognitive Development
Sučević, J., Althaus, N., & Plunkett, K. (2022). Discovering category boundaries: The role of comparison in infants’ novel category learning. Infancy, 27(3), 533-554. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/infa.12459
Sučević, J., Althaus, N., & Plunkett, K. (2021). The role of labels and motions in infant category learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 205. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00339
Althaus, N., & Westermann, G. (2016). Labels constructively shape object categories in 10-month-old infants. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.11.013
Althaus, N., & Plunkett, K. (2016). Categorization in infancy: labeling induces a persisting focus on commonalities. Developmental Science, 19(5), 770–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12358
Althaus, N., & Plunkett, K. (2015). Timing matters: The impact of label synchrony on infant categorisation. Cognition, 139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.02.004
Althaus, N., & Mareschal, D. (2014). Labels direct infants’ attention to commonalities during novel category learning. PLoS ONE, 9(7). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0099670
Althaus, N., & Mareschal, D. (2012). Using Saliency Maps to Separate Competing Processes in Infant Visual Cognition. Child Development, 83(4), 1122–1128. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01766.x
CV
2006 MA Linguistics, Computer Science & Psychology University of Tübingen, Germany
2010 PhD Psychology CBCD, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
2009-2010 Oxford Brookes BabyLab, Oxford Brookes University
2010-2016 Oxford University BabyLab, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford
2014-2016 Language & Brain Lab, Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics, University of Oxford
2012-2016 Winkler Career Development Fellow, St Hugh's College, University of Oxford
Since 2016 Lecturer, School of Psychology, UEA
Lab & Research Team
Current Lab Team:
Haben Gebrehiwot, MSc Developmental Science
Barbara Zapior, 3rd year research student
Lydia De'Ath, 3rd year research student
More information about our infant research at UEA can be found on the website of the Developmental Dynamics Lab.
Contact
Phone: +44 (0)1603 59 2522
initial dot lastname at uea.ac.uk
@NadjaAlthaus