Dear SPM experts
I am writing to ask a couple of questions about the design of my study and check if I am going the right way in my data analysis. We are doing a study on the processing of nouns and verbs among monolinguals and bilinguals. The bilingual group is itself divided into three groups: A, B, and C. The task in the bilingual group consists of 4 conditions: generation of English nouns,
generation of English verbs, generation of Persian nouns, and generation of Persian verbs.
But, the task in the monolingual group consists only of the two latter conditions. Now my questions are in order:
1. I'd like to see if the processing of 4 conditions between the three groups A, B, and C differ significantly.
In other words, I want to
see the interaction of word type (4 conditions) * group (A, B, C). What kind of analysis should I use for this question? I guess three-way ANOVA? Should I use T or F for this question in the contrast manager? I guess I should use F. But F is not directional. If the result of an F test was significant, shall I go with Ts to test the direction of activation among the groups?
2. I'd like to make sure if processing of the 4 conditions within every group differ significantly. I guess I should use a repeated measures
ANOVA? Again shall I use T or F? Is
there a way in SPM to run a within-between ANOVA? I mean to test questions 1 and 2 together,
not in separate rounds of
analysis?
3. I'd like to test the interaction of group (monolinguals and bilinguals) * word type (Persian noun and Persian verb). Shall I use a two-way ANOVA?
I also have some questions about defining contrasts in
each of these questions, but I prefer to postpone it to another email communication so that I do not bore you respected SPM experts to tears :) Please feel free to ask me questions about my study in case you need to know more in order to answer the questions.
Best wishes
Mohammad