As previously mentioned, in addition to the structural priming paradigm, the proposed study will make use of the measurement of event-related potentials via EEG. In order to measure the potentials accurately, there needs to be a starting point for which to begin the EEG measurements. Peter Hagoort (2008) suggests that the EEG measurement for an experiment measuring the P600, such as the proposed study, should begin at the final word of the sentence. However, I disagree with this idea, and side more so with researchers such as Clare Stroud and Colin Phillips (2010). They completed a similar study to the proposed one, but in Spanish, and began the EEG recording at the point that the participants heard the Spanish indicator of a passive of active sentence, “fue” and “estaba” respectively. Following this model, I would begin the EEG in the priming condition when the participants heard the word “was” + past-tense verb, which is an indicator in English that the sentence is following the passive voice structure. Accounting for EEG limitations There are always aspects that need to be accounted for in an EEG study for it to be accurate, and minimize as much noise as possible. As Steven Luck (2005) mentions, it is first important to avoid physical stimulus confounds when possible. This can be implemented by using the same physical stimulus across all conditions. In response to this strategy, I propose to use the same black and white transitive action cards in the baseline task as well as both conditions of the priming task. The only difference will be that in the baseline task, only the 10 target cards are used as opposed to the target cards and the 10 priming cards, as there is no need to prime the participants in the baseline condition. This should not be an issue as it is not necessary to measure the event-related potentials of the baseline task, since its purpose is to determine children’s spontaneity of using the passive voice structure in comparison to active voice structures. To further ensure accuracy, the proposed study consistently begins the EEG measurements at the moment the child has heard the passive voice indicator (“was” + past-tense verb). In addition, the proposed study has made efforts to minimize noise in a couple different ways. First of all, it is suggested that there be 40 participants in the priming task condition, with 10 trials each for a total of 400 trials. The 40 participants will be further randomly assigned in even amounts to the procedural condition of repeating the prime or not. Even so, this leaves 20 participants per procedural conditions, with 200 trials each. This is well within the suggested range provided by Luck (2005). He recommends having 30-60 trials per condition of a study examining a large event-related potential component. However, when working with younger participants like children, one should try to double or triple that number of trials. Therefore, I have multiplied the suggested amount by 3.3 to ensure there are enough trials for this study. With the amount of trials in the study, there are no doubts that, even if multiple trials have to be removed from the study due to noise, there will be ample EEG data to examine the P600 response. When discussing the topic of minimizing noise, it is also important to account for the noise made by blinks or other eye movements that may cause event-related potentials to appear on the
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In calculating and examining the event-related potentials, EEG data is to be averaged for the critical word for each electrode position. In the proposed study, “was” + a past-tense verb serves as the critical word. This data will be examined for the baseline and priming task conditions in the time window of -200 ms to 1000 ms relative to the critical word phrase (Regel et al., 2014). The inclusion of the time frame -200 ms to 0 ms will allow for baseline measures for reference when the P600 response is later examined. The measures include the time range of up to 100 ms, as the effects of the P600 are often still seen around 900 ms. Figure 5 shows the prediction for the averaged P600 response using the example sentence of “the ball was kicked by the
In calculating and examining the event-related potentials, EEG data is to be averaged for the critical word for each electrode position. In the proposed study, “was” + a past-tense verb serves as the critical word. This data will be examined for the baseline and priming task conditions in the time window of -200 ms to 1000 ms relative to the critical word phrase (Regel et al., 2014). The inclusion of the time frame -200 ms to 0 ms will allow for baseline measures for reference when the P600 response is later examined. The measures include the time range of up to 100 ms, as the effects of the P600 are often still seen around 900 ms. Figure 5 shows the prediction for the averaged P600 response using the example sentence of “the ball was kicked by the