Web Activity 10.7 Design your own SLIP study

In Method 10.2, you were introduced to the SLIP technique for studying speech errors. As mentioned in that box, the method can be used to address a variety of research questions. Some plausible questions are listed at the end of that box, but you might also come up with your own questions that you are curious about.

Get a feel for what it is like to design a SLIP experiment. Identify a research question and design a miniature SLIP study to test it, incorporating the information from the text of some of practical issues involved in using this method.

Create a word list that includes at least ten target word pairs (five in each condition) and an appropriate number of fillers and interference sets. Try to minimize any important differences in your list of target word pairs, other than the specific difference you are trying to test. For example, some factors that might affect the ease of pronouncing target words include the length and frequency of words, or whether they represent common or unusual phonotactic patterns.