Back in the Swing of Things

Just for fun, here are a few pictures I snapped on my phone camera while I was in Illinois.

Mmmmmm, the lovely nothingness of central Illinois.  (And I really do mean that.)

The lovely somethingness of Chicago in winter.

And then there was this ridiculous thing asleep on the bed when I got home:

He was sleeping like this, in the dark.

But now I'm back, and it's January, and it's time to get back in the swing of things.  I've been back in the campus preschool this week, collecting more data, and it is so fun.  I started the kids on a new and different task this week, so it's been really interesting to see what they do with it, how they respond to it. We've moved on to production now, which means instead of just listening to words and "silly words", they're saying words and silly words, as fast as they can.  So I'm getting some really cool data on how long it takes them to figure out how to say stuff, and what kinds of errors they make.  (And still what they had for breakfast, and what their favorite movie is, etc., etc... Kids are way more interesting to work with than adults for many reasons, one of which being that they just do stuff that adults don't.  Like stop doing the task in the middle to tell you about their favorite cartoon.)

I snapped this picture of my research room today (you can see me in the one-way mirror on the left side snapping the photo).  I really like my little research room, but it's gotten almost comical how much equipment I have to set up to get it ready.

Your tax dollars at work, folks.  Linguistic research in action.

First I have to plug in the special audio equipment and headphones on the other side of that mirror, so my research assistant can watch and listen in and take notes.  Then I have to set up the laptop, which gets connected to the speakers and the button box.  The button box (that thing on the right) both controls the presentation of the stimuli and gets reaction times for me.  But it's actually really awesome and it can get the reaction time from the kids' voices - except that to do that, you have to hook it in to a microphone.  So I also have a wireless microphone set up.  The mic itself gets hooked to the kids' shirt so it gets their voice, then it sends the signal to the receiver, which is plugged in to the back of the button box.  Then because I'm tricky and clever, I realized I could plug a second receiver into the laptop, so that the laptop can record everything they're saying, too.  So the laptop records the whole session and also presents the stimuli, which is basically a bunch of sound files of me saying "bird!" or "cheek!" or whatever.  And then the kid has to say them back as fast as s/he can (in one of the tasks), and the mic sends it to the laptop to be recorded, and to the button box to get the reaction time for how long it took them to say it.  Whew!  But I'm pretty proud of my little setup.

And finally, a Cute Rye-Dog Picture: 

Cuddle buddy.

I think that will have to be all for now, friends.  I'm kinda tired and still have to walk the dogs and look at my data from today.  Bye for now!


Update:  Wait!  I forgot half of the reason I wanted to write this post!  A really cute and interesting story. One of my professor's son is 3 and goes to the preschool where I'm doing my research.  I actually tested him for the first time today, and we had this exchange:

me:  Did you know I see your mom at my school sometimes?
him:  No!  I didn't!
me:  Yeah!  She's a teacher at my school.
him:  Oh... but she turned back into my mom right now.

I told my professor about it, and it turns out they went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium yesterday, and he was very concerned about missing school.  So they were talking about how it's okay to take vacations sometimes, and the difference between work and school and vacation.  But I guess this little guy took away from that conversation that you can only do one of those things at a time, and by golly, she's his mom right now.