Participate

A vast majority of participants are recruited through SONA.

EEG

In our EEG experiments, you will be presented with either speech sounds or words and make decisions about them. These stimuli are will be presented at a comfortable listening level or on a computer monitor. To record the electrical waves produced by your brain we will place an EEG cap on your head. The electrodes must be close to the scalp, and as such, you will be asked to remove any garment, including potentially religious clothing, that covers the head. Because these waves are very small we need to use a special gel to make better contact between the cap and your scalp. We do use a syringe to insert the gel into the cap. So, those with an aversion to needles should be warned – though of course, this is not a needle in the doctor’s sense! It’s just used to put gel into the electrodes. The EEG cap and system and the EEG gel are completely safe and entirely non-invasive. But it is important to point out that the gel is sticky and requires hair washing after the experiment. A sink, shampoo, towels and a hair dryer are provided in the lab for you to use. EEG experiments will not take longer than 90 minutes (though plan for a full 2 hours) and will occur in the Linguistics Laboratory in SW132.

Behavioural

In our behavioural experiments, you will be presented with either speech sounds or words and make decisions about them. Stimuli will be presented at a comfortable listening level or on a computer monitor, and you will be asked to respond either via button-press or mouse-click about what you perceived. Behavioural experiments will not take longer than an hour. These experiments are conducted in the Linguistics Laboratory (SW132).

participate