Although there are a number of details I’d still like to fill in, including linking in some references I have, adding more, etc., I’m ready to declare the example topics fit for consumption.

If you go to the readings page, and click on the jump link to readings related to individual topics, you’ll see a big list of topics that somebody has done a project on in the past. Some topics have been looked at by a couple of different people. I have tried to include at least a brief description of the study performed, and give some relevant references for the topic.

Your task: Read through the whole list, and see if any of these suggest ideas to you about topics you might want to study. Maybe with different languages? Maybe with a different subject population, or with a different method? You are in fact free to just choose one of the previously used topics as well, if you find one that seems interesting. Even if somebody else has done it before, you will almost certainly do it somewhat differently, and you might well get more definitive results or see different implications.

Schedule: As you will be aware, this is spring break. You may, if you wish, spend some of that time looking at this. The topic proposal itself won’t be due until the Thursday of the return from spring break, March 24. The proposal should be just basically a page outlining what topic you want to look at, what readings you think will be relevant, how you might approach it experimentally. The next task after this will be the design of the study itself, but for the proposal, the main thing is to choose a topic, a question to answer.