Members of the Center for Language and Brain took part in a linguistic expedition in the Republic of Adygea
From July 1st to July 15th, 2023, a team from the Center for Language and Brain (Olga Dragoy - a head of the expedition, Aigul Khanova, Nina Zdorova, Bela Ogly, and Alexandra Korzhenevskaya) took part in a linguistic expedition in cooperation with the Laboratory of Experimental Linguistics at the Adyghe State University (Susanna Makerova, Nafiset Naumova, and Aida Bguasheva). Researchers conducted a field study in the aul Dzhambechy, Republic of Adygea, Russia.
The expedition was dedicated to the studies of reading and cognitive functions in Adyghe-Russian bilinguals. Within the expedition, three eye-tracking experiments were conducted. The purpose of the first experiment was to study eye fixations while reading sentences in Adyghe. The aim of the second experiment was to determine a landing position of the first fixation on a word depending on the word’s morphemic structure. The purpose of the third experiment was to determine which type of clauses is more easily processed by Adyghe speakers – absolutive object relative clause or ergative subject relative clause.
Participants also completed some cognitive tests: a test for measuring a person's selective attention capacity "Stroop's Test", a test for measuring non-verbal intelligence and abstract reasoning "Raven's Matrices" and a test for assessing memory "Rey's Test", presented in Russian and Adyghe languages.
A report on this project is also available in the archives of the Adyghe State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (https://t.me/gtrk_adygeia/9239). An informal video about the expedition is also available in the Telegram channel of the Center for Language and Brain (https://t.me/clb_hse/37).