Results from GamesWithWords.org experiments, plus a new experiment

[Joshua Hartshorne]

Hi Folks,

I wrote you recently to tell you about a new paper based on research at GamesWithWords.org in which many of you likely participated. I am very pleased to announce that a second paper was recently accepted and will appear sometime next year in Experimental Psychology. This paper also investigates the effects of context on language interpretation (pronouns in particular). The primary contribution of the new paper is to compare results across a number of languages (English, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, and Finnish). You can read an in-depth description here. The accepted draft is posted here (the paper is currently going through copy-editing; I'll post a more final version when it's available). 

In addition, there is a new experiment on the website, posted a couple weeks ago, called Ignore That!. It is a lot of fun (I think). Your goal is to carry out a simple task as quickly as possible without being distracted (this is harder than you might think). The experiment illustrates one of the most famous effects in cognitive psychology (You'll see your score at the end, and most people will show the effect). It takes 3-5 minutes. You can read a bit more about it on the blog.

Thank you all for your past and future support.

Josh Hartshorne

Post-doctoral fellow, MIT