I have a (to me) complex experimental design I'm working on pre-registering and I want to make sure I'm approaching the model correctly. I've attempted to offer an illustration of the design below.
I have two experimental conditions that are manipulated prior to the administering of the repeated measures, so I think it would be accurate to describe this as a nested design. I'm primarily interested in the main effects at Time 1 and the over time interactions for the groups that change. My question is, since I'm using repeated measures, can I just "lump" the between subjects groups together (so four levels) or is it better to enter two separate between subjects factors (each with two levels) into the model. I've attempted to simulate the data, but that's not helping me clarify.
Is it also appropriate to do planned contrasts here since I have specific comparisons I want to make?