MapTask to the Future

Assisted Dr Catherine Lai and Dr Rebekka Puderbaugh in the School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences

Adapted the University of Edinburgh's 1992 ‘Map Task’ study for the 21st century as ‘MapTask to the Future’

Audited the 1992 study to account for outdated elements and procedures, and implemented relevant changes for the modern age 

Designed a new pilot study to run digitally over Zoom in a cooperative game format and have participants guide and follow each other through routes on different maps 

Goal of eliciting 128 unscripted dialogues to use as a corpus for various research purposes, such as machine learning and pragmatics studies

Designed over 60 new maps using GIMP software to account for areas of phonological interest with modern and relevant locations, designed to be appealing to gamers 

Wrote ethics protocol for data collection approval

Used Prolific to recruit participants after gaining ethics approval