Professor Andrea Krott MA, PhD

School of Psychology
Professor of Psychology of Language
Deputy Head of School

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 414 4903
Email: a.krott@bham.ac.uk

Address: School of Psychology
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Andrea Krott studies the psychology of human language. Her early research investigated how we store and represent language rules and words in our minds and how children acquire those rules and words. More recently, she has investigated language as an ability that interacts with other cognitive abilities. She is interested in how general cognitive abilities such as attention and cognitive flexibility affect language acquisition and language processing. And vice versa, she has been studying how language experience, especially bilingualism, affects cognitive and socio-communicative abilities.

Qualifications

M.A., University of Trier (Germany)
Ph.D., University of Nijmegen (The Netherlands)

Teaching

Module lead on Research Methods and Skills in Psychology - masters level module

Contribution to Language and Communication - UG level 2 module

Postgraduate supervision

Andrea Krott is a psycholinguist who is interested in language acquisition and brain responses to language processing. Many of her studies, carried out in various languages, have focused on how adults and children understand and produce compound words (eg, ‘baby bottle’). Her current research concerns children’s word learning and language-related brain responses (EEG) in adults.

With regard to adult language processing, Dr Krott often uses EEG to better understand the neural processes that underlie language comprehension or production. One of her projects, funded by the Wellcome Trust, focused on a language-related EEG effect, the left anterior negativity (LANs), and its occurrence during the processing of morphologically complex words. Currently she is investigating neural correlates of language production. In another recent collaborative project Dr Krott is exploring language assessment tools for bilingual children. Dr Krott is interested to hear from doctoral researchers who would like to work in any of her research areas.

My current research interest are

word learning in infancy and early childhood
the relationship of cognitive abilities and word learning
cognitive and socio-communicative advantages in bilingualism
the bilingual brain
effects of bilingual neural and cognitive changes on language processing

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you are interested in pursuing a postgraduate degree (masters or PhD) in any of these or related research areas.

Have a look also at my lab webpage https://andreakrott.com

Publications

Highlight publications

DeLuca, V, Segaert, K, Mazaheri, A & Krott, A 2020, 'Understanding bilingual brain function and structure changes? U bet! A unified bilingual experience trajectory model', Journal of Neurolinguistics, vol. 56, 100930. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2020.100930

Zuniga Montanez, CC, Kita, S, Aussems, S & Krott, A 2021, 'Beyond the Shape of Things: Infants Can Be Taught to Generalize Nouns by Objects’ Functions', Psychological Science, vol. 32, no. 7, pp. 1073-1085. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797621993107

Markiewicz, R, Mazaheri, A & Krott, A 2022, 'Bilingualism can cause enhanced conflict monitoring and occasional delayed responses in a flanker task', European Journal of Neuroscience, pp. 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.15863

Floccia, C, Sambrook, T, Delle Luche, C, Kwok, R, Goslin, J, White, L, Cattani, A, Sullivan, E, Abbot-Smith, K, Krott, A, Mills, D, Rowland, C, Gervain, J & Plunkett, K 2018, 'Vocabulary of 2-year-olds learning English and an additional language: norms and effects of linguistic distance', Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, vol. 83, no. 1, pp. 1-135. https://doi.org/10.1111/mono.v83.1

Poarch, G & Krott, A 2019, 'A bilingual advantage? An appeal for a change in perspective and recommendations for future research', Behavioral Sciences, vol. 9, no. 9, 95. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs9090095