Experimental Methods in the Podesta

The Sumner readings engaged me on two levels. On one level, it was interesting to think about semantic and technical implications. I loved thinking about words priming other words, i.e. bringing them further to the forefront of the mind such that we recognize them faster. It was interesting to learn from these readings that phonetically-cued talker variation really does affect this priming process. Then on a deeper level, it was challenging to come face-to-face with the social weight of different ways of speaking and how I personally might be biased against some of them. I related to the suggestion that I might subconsciously modulate my attention depending on the speaker in particular.

The Podesta article was fascinating and I loved the "case study", more applicable feel that it had. I wanted to just briefly mention how cool I found the methods section of this paper. Their methods were super easy to follow and understand, much more so than other similar papers I've read in other disciplines. And most importantly, I was surprised to learn that they weren't too different from the ones we learned about in class. From Pratt to the pin-pen merger, I couldn't speak of a concept in that section that was foreign, and that was really awesome. Just by figuring out a way to employ those tools smartly, they were able to gather the amazing insights seen in the results section and produce a quality paper.