Sigrid Lipka

1

• Sigrid Lipka
• s.lipka_at_derby.ac.uk
• Aims of workshops
• Schedule
• Experimental paradigms
• Generating research questions

• References
• check your lecture notes module web pages for
  relevant references
• check recommended course texts for discussion of
  research methods

2

• Aims of Workshops
• provide students with a strong understanding of
  the research methods employed in the field, and
  how to report research findings
• design, conduct, analyse, and present the
  findings of a computer-based experimental
  investigation of an aspect of human reasoning or
  language comprehension

3

• Schedule
• five workshops
• work in groups of four or five
• individual posters (10 of your module grade)
• we give you software for three basic experimental
  paradigms (courtesy of Miles Richardson)
• lexical decision task
• semantic priming
• sentence reading

4

• Schedule Meet in LT 1 first
• Wshop 1 Decide research question plan
  design
• experiment with at least 2
  IVs
• Wshop 2 Fine tune experimental software
  input
• stimuli prepare
  Instructions
• 31. 3. - 25. 4. 2 Block Teaching Weeks Easter
  Break
• Wshop 3 Run experiment
• Wshop 4 Data analysis interpretation of
  results
• Wshop 5 Finish poster

5

• Experimental paradigms
• lexical decision task LDT
• semantic priming
• sentence reading
• allow you to collect response latencies,
• reflecting the time it takes to perform mental
• operations

6

• LDT Sequence of events in each trial
• present fixation point in centre of screen
• present target single word or nonword in centre
  of screen
• wait for response, using two keys for "yes" and
  "no
• record response times
• Program records stimuli
• participants choice
• response time

7

• LDT
• Experimenter specifies
• number of trials
• presentation time for target
• stimuli

8

• Semantic Priming with LDT Sequence of events in
  each trial
• present fixation point in centre of screen
• present pair of words word 1
• word 2 or
  nonword
• wait for response to word 2/nonword, using two
  keys for "yes" and "no
• record response times to word 2/nonword
• Program records stimuli
• participants choice
• response time

9

• Semantic Priming
• Experimenter specifies
• number of trials
• presentation times for word 1 in seconds
• stimuli

10

• Sentence reading Sequence of events in each
  trial
• present fixation point in centre of screen
• present two sentences, one at a time
• record response time for each presentation
• present a yes / no question
• record response time and response key for answer
• use for
• self-paced reading parsing experiments
• reasoning tasks

11

• Sentence reading
• Program records stimuli
• response times for each sentence
• response key
  for answer
• response time
  for answer

12

• Sentence reading
• Experimenter specifies
• number of trials
• number of sentences per trial

13

• Experimental paradigms General points
• order of stimuli is the same for all participants
• YOU create the stimuli
• YOU decide how many stimuli participants to use
• all output can be put into SPSS or Excel (via cut
  paste)
• in SPSS or Excel, you can add CODES for your
  conditions, e.g., type of prime sentence type

14

• Generating research question
• from any topic area discussed in lectures
• question has to have some theoretical relevance
• experiment can be replication of published
  research but with some new angle
• brainstrom questions in your group
• keep Design simple but have at least 2 factors
  with 2 levels each (I.e., 4 conditions)