Neil Cohn is a doctoral student at Tufts University who studies the way people read comics—or, according to his bio, "the relationship of the cognition guiding the comprehension of comics to the processes used in understanding language." He blogs, rather infrequently, at emaki.net, where he finds interesting bits of research about how people read and create comics and other media.

Now you can help: Neil has an experiment up right now, and anyone is invited to participate. It's basically an online survey—no wires and electrodes, no strange drugs—and only takes a few minutes to complete. So go, be a guinea pig. As an added incentive, participants have a chance to win one of two $50 Best Buy gift certificates.

Neil doesn't just study comics—he also illustrated the non-fiction comic We the People, so his creator credentials are in order. Here's a short interview with Neil at Dimes for Nickels, which gives a bit more background on his research.

(Via Scott McCloud.)