I participated in a linguistics experiment at
my old alma mater campus, the University of Oslo.
As a former linguistics student who decided
against pursuing research as a profession, it
was a lot of fun. The student conducting the
experiment was slightly worried that my
background might be disqualifying, but after
her supervisor gave her the green light, my
assigned partner and I could proceed.

We had to play a memory game with cute alien
characters who were given simple but unusual
names, on the structure C-V-C-V-C (where C is
a consonant and V is a vowel). The exercise
was part listening and part speaking, as we
were separated by a wall, and we were fitted
with mics and headphones.

We did very poorly, but at least we contributed
to research, for a small but appreciated
compensation. I will have to see the paper to
fully appreciate what the experiment is testing,
obviously I'm not a complete blank on it, but
I would rather find out than guess.