I am trying help build the intuitions of my non-brain imaging audience
as they read my dissertation. My advisor suggested that I might start
with a section that analyzes some basic question response data rather
than the more complex contrasts that are of substantive interest. So,
I was thinking that I might look at the mean activations while my
subjects were responding to the questions I asked them.
The way I am planning to do this is:
A C L M R T U
Political 1 1 1 1 0 0 0
NonPolitical 0 0 0 0 1 1 1
All 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
My expectation is that this will give me the mean activation of the
areas involved in responding to the questions with the remainder of the
event-related time as a contrast (e.g. the question presentation and
the rest period). I would expect that this would allow me to see
activations in areas like the motor strip as they press the button or
perhaps language areas (rather than the more focused results I am
getting from running contrasts that are aimed to subtract the basic
motor/response stuff). Is that about right?
I am not running these analyses to get any analytical insight, but
rather to just show how we might look at simple means before I start
moving into the more complex contrasts. Any other suggestions for this
purely pedagogical goal?
This also raises a conceptual question for me. What kinds of
differences would expect between these two analyses?
1st Level 3rd Level
1: Political Sophisticates-Novices
2: Political-Non Sophisticates-Novices
In the first, I guess I would be contrasting the mean activations
between the sophisticates and novices for political questions. In the
second, I think I would be contrasting the contrasts. But, I am not
sure what I would expect to see different between these two analyses.
Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance
Darren
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