Journal of Experimental Psychology

1963, Vol. 66, No. 5, 454-460

WORD ASSOCIATION AS A FUNCTION OF

CONDITIONED MEANING 1
HOWARD R. POLLIO 2
University of Michigan

2 groups of 40 and 37 Ss, respectively, were exposed to the Staats'

language conditioning procedure involving 3 nonsense syllables as CSs
and 3 sets of 9 meaningful words each, as UCSs. At the conclusion of
training Ss gave word associations to the CS syllables. A 3rd group
of 25 Ss then rated these associates on the evaluative scale of the
semantic differential. Results indicated that SD ratings of the as-
sociates produced were congruent with the SD ratings of the paired
UCS word group. This was true whether or not the associates were from
the original UCS words or whether they were cued by the connotative
characteristics of the CS syllable. The results indicate that in the
absence of specific word-word associative habits, word association may
be determined by the connotative characteristics of the stimulus word.

Although word association is a nenbaum, 1957) and Mowrer (1954)

classical psychological procedure, the
critical factors which lead to the
evocation of a specific word as an
association have yet to be described
in any detail. The similarity between
word association and memory experi-
ments has been noted by Woodworth
(1938), and it is, therefore, not sur-
prising to find that most explanations
of word association involve considera-
tions of such factors as frequency and
recency which have been shown to
have a strong effect on memory for
words. Thus, Johnson (1956), Os-
good and Anderson (1957), Howes
(1957), and Underwood and Schulz
(I960) all assume some variety of a
frequency of occurrence explanation
as sufficient to explain why one word
produces another in the word associa-
tion procedure.
Staats (1961; Staats & Staats,
1959), in his elaboration of the Osgood
(Osgood, 1953; Osgood, Suci, & Tan-
1
The present research was done while the
author was on a Predoctoral United States
Public Health Service Research Fellowship.
Arthur W. Melton offered many helpful
suggestions during the course of this in-
vestigation.
2
Now at the University of Tennessee.
454
mediational hypothesis of word mean-
ing acquisition, has assumed that
while the frequency of occurrence of
an individual word, or its frequency of
co-occurrence with another word,
provide some basis for predicting overt
verbal associative behavior, the con-
ditioned meaning response aroused by
stimulus words must also strongly
affect the course of overt association.
As evidence for this hypothesis, Staats
has examined the correlation between
the evaluative semantic differential
(SD) rating of a stimulus word and
the mean evaluative SD rating of the
first 20 associates to that stimulus
word. For 10 words, the rank-order
correlation between these ratings was
.90 (p < .01).
A more extensive analysis of the
semantic relationship between a stim-
ulus word and its first associates has
been done (Pollio, 1962) and the
results show a significant positive
correlation between the SD rating of
50 Kent-Rosanoff stimulus words and
the SD ratings of their primary
associates on the evaluative, potency,
and activity dimensions of the seman-
tic differential. Meaningful media-
 WORD ASSOCIATION AND CONDITIONED MEANING
tion would seem to be involved in
determining overt word associations
although its specific contribution is
not completely clear.
The purpose of the present experi-
ment is to examine word associations
given in response to an originally
neutral language stimulus such as a
nonsense syllable of low association
value which has had a specific mean-
ing response conditioned to it. The
procedure successfully used by Staats
(Staats, 1961; Staats & Staats, 1959)
permits the conditioning of specific
meaning responses to nonsense syl-
lables without the concomitant condi-
tioning of any or many words as direct
word associates. We have assumed
that after language conditioning takes
place: (a) The 5s will be able to
provide a significantly greater number
of meaningful word associations to
nonsense syllables which initially
aroused few if any associates. (6) The
SD ratings of associates given in
response to a nonsense syllable having
meaning responses established through
this procedure, will be similar to the
mean SD ratings of the words used
as the UCS words.
METHOD
Subjects
There were two experimental groups;
Group I had 40 5s while Group II had 37 5s.
A third group of 25 5s was used to rate
material obtained from Groups I and II. All
5s were female introductory psychology
students at the University of Michigan and
served in this experiment as part of their
course requirement.
Materials
The materials consisted of the following
three trigrams, with their respective associa-
tion norms as restandardized by Archer
(1960); GEJ (9%), QIH (6%), and XAD (7%).
These words will be referred to as CS words.
Three sets of nine words each were used as
UCS words and had the following character-
istics: There was one set of nine UCS words
455
with positive evaluative SD ratings as
determined by the Jenkins, Russell, and Suci
(1958) norms, one set of nine with negative
evaluative SD ratings, and one set of nine
with neutral evaluative SD ratings.
The nine words serving as the positive
UCS words and the nine words serving as the
negative UCS words were so selected as to
have fewer within-set common associates than
between-sets common associates. There are
36 intragroup associates common to two or
more words in the set of positive UCS words
(i.e., M = 4.00); while there are 42 intragroup
associates in the set of negative UCS words
(M = 4.07). The communality between
these two sets yields 87 cases (M = 4.85).
This control on the interword associative
tendencies of the UCS words serves to guar-
antee that if the SD profiles of associations
emitted by 5s in response to one of the
nonsense syllables are similar to the SD
profiles of the UCS words paired with that
nonsense syllable, this similarity is the result
of communality in meaning response, rather
than the result of communality in intralist
associative relations such as have been
described by Deese (1959) and by Rothkopf
and Coke (1961).
The specific words employed in the various
sets of UCS words will be found in Table 1.
The 1958 SD ratings were taken from the
Jenkins, Russell, and Suci (1958) norms while
the second set of SD ratings presented was
obtained from the 25 5s in our word rating
group. As can be seen from Table 1 the
present ratings, when compared to those
obtained by Jenkins et al., produce both less
polarized mean SD values and larger within-
group sigmas for all three sets of UCS words.
The differences in within-group variability are
particularly noticeable for neutral UCS words.
While the mean difference between ratings is
not great, many of the individual ratings in
this group deviate considerably from the
original norms (e.g., GLOW).
Procedure
Meaning conditioning,Two different con-
ditioning sessions were run, each with a
different group of 5s. For Group I, GEJ was
paired with positive UCS words; XAD was
paired with negative UCS words; and QIH
was paired with neutral UCS words. For
Group II, XAD was paired with positive UCS
words, GEJ with negative UCS words, and
QIH was again paired with neutral UCS
words. The specific pairing of CS syllables
and UCS words took place as follows: A CS
syllable was flashed on a screen for 5 sec.
456 HOWARD R. POLLIO

TABLE 1
UCS WORDS AND THEIR EVALUATIVE SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL RATINGS

Positive Words Neutral Words Negative Words

UCS 1958 Present UCS 19S8 Present UCS 1958 Present

Word Rating" Rating Word Rating' Rating Word Rating8 Rating

MUSIC 1.60 1.60 ARCHED 4.07 3.70 SICKNESS 6.50 6.55

EATING 1.57 2.75 BOULDER 4.17 4.00 COLD 5.27 4.55
HOUSE 1.77 2.60 HEAVY 4.10 4.80 ROUGH 5.00 4.80
COMFORT 2.03 2.05 BRISTLY 3.93 4.75 ANGER 5.57 4.63
SMOOTH 2.57 2.60 GLOW 3.93 1.70 SOUR 5.37 5.30
SWEET 1.93 1.90 LONG 3.87 4.45 TROUBLE 6.10 5.45
BEAUTIFUL 2.00 1.80 RUN 3.87 3.55 HUNGRY 5.17 5.15
HEALTH 1.97 1.25 MALLET 3.80 4.75 THIEF 6.37 5.75
SWIFT 2.73 2.25 BLOCK 3.67 4.40 AFRAID 5.47 5.50
M 2.00 2.09 3.93 4.01 5.62 5.30
SD .35 .48 .14 .93 .49 .59

Taken from the Jenkins, Russell, and Suci (1958) norms.

After 1 sec., E read one of the UCS words
aloud, and all 5s pronounced the word after
him. This procedure was followed until each
of the three CS syllables had been paired with
nine appropriate UCS syllables. This made
a total of 27 pairings in all. The order of
presentation of the UCS-nonsense-syllable
pairings was random for both groups. During
this conditioning period 5s were told not "to
make any special attempt to memorize either
the words or the syllables."
Word association.At the conclusion of
the training sessions, 5s in both groups were
asked "to write down, in the booklets given
to you as you entered, the first word that
comes into your mind when you see the
nonsense syllable." These booklets contained
6 pages. On each of these pages the three
CS syllables appeared in one of the six
permutations possible for three elements.
For every S, each of the six possible orders
was presented; the specific order of the
permutations being randomized across 5s and
groups. Association was paced, so that 5s
were given approximately 20 sec. in which to
respond to any set of three syllables. Only
those words given in the first 20 sec. associa-
tion are considered in subsequent analyses.
These words are most appropriate for demon-
strating the effects of conditioned meaning on
word association uncontaminated by the
nature of the specific word associates already
produced. Choosing the associates produced
in any other association period, or the mean
value for all six periods, adds in the con-
founding effect of these preceding associates.
Since the purpose of this experiment is to
examine the effects of conditioned meaning
and not of prior associative responses, on
overt word association only those associates
produced in the first 20 sec. association period
provide appropriate data for this analysis.
Independent rating of associates.All of
the word associations given by the 77 5s of

TABLE 2
MEANS AND 5Ds OF THE SD RATINGS OF THE ASSOCIATIONS GIVEN IN RESPONSE
TO CS SYLLABLES AS A FUNCTION OF CONDITIONED MEANING PAIRING

Paired UCS Word Group

Experimental Positive Neutral Negative N

Group

M SD M SD M SD

i 2.76 1.00 3.10 1.13 4.72 1.27 40

ii 2.79 1.48 3.67 1.25 4.39 1.37 37
 WORD ASSOCIATION AND CONDITIONED MEANING 457

Groups I and II during this first 20-sec. TABLE 3

period were given to a different group of 25
female 5s for rating of each word on the good- ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE OF THE DIFFERENCES
bad evaluative scale of the semantic differ- IN SD RATINGS OF ASSOCIATIONS AS A
ential. The specific order of words to be rated FUNCTION OF CONDITIONED MEANING
was randomly determined in booklets pre-
sented to this group of 5s. In each of these Source df MS F
booklets, the associates produced by 5s in Between Ss 76
Groups I and II were typed in capital letters. Groups (G) 1 .47
A 7-step evaluative SD scale, good-bad, was Error (b) 75 1.35
Within 5s 154
printed under each of these words. The 5s Conditioned Meanings (M) 2 63.61 36.35***
indicated their ratings of a word by placing a M XG 2 3.96 2.26
Error (w) 150 1.75
mark on the scale where they thought ap- 230
propriate. The instructions given to this
rating group were essentially similar to those
used by Jenkins, Russell, and Suci (19S8).

RESULTS An analysis of variance was per-

Evaluative characteristics of all as-
sociates.-After SD ratings were se-
cured for the word associates given in
response to the CS syllables for
Groups I and II, mean SD values were
obtained for each of these associations.
Table 2 shows that for both groups,
the SD rating of the word associates
given in response to the CS syllables
were similar to the SD ratings of the
paired UCS words. Thus, CS syl-
lables paired with positive UCS words
produced word associates which had
positive evaluative meaning, while CS
syllables paired with negative UCS
words produced word associates that
had negative evaluative meaning.
The SD ratings of associates to the
neutral CS syllable fell between the
ratings of the positive and negative
groups.
formed on these data, and the only
significant source of variation among
means was attributable to conditioned
meanings. Thus a CS syllable paired
with meaningful UCS words tends
to produce associates having the
same SD ratings as the UCS words
themselves.
Evaluative characteristics of cued
associates.At this point it may be
argued that the SD ratings of the
associates to the CS syllables were
similar to the SD ratings of the UCS
words because the associates by and
large, were the UCS words themselves.
An examination of the associates
produced, however, revealed that for
the 40 5s in Group I, 54% (64 of a
possible 120) of these associates were
words not contained in any of the
UCS word groups, while the com-
parable figure for the 37 5s in Group

TABLE 4
NUMBER AND NATURE OF CUED ASSOCIATES AND MEANS AND 5Ds OF THE SD RATINGS
OF THESE CUED ASSOCIATES AS A FUNCTION OF PAIRED UCS WORDS

Paired UCS Word Group

Experimental Positive Neutral Negative

Group

M SD N M SD N M SD 2V

i 3.10 .93 22 3.28 1.14 20 4.70 1.50 22

ii 3.25 1.85 15 3.54 1.17 20 4.00 1.28 18
458 HOWARD R. POLLIO

II was 48% (53 of a possible 111). TABLE 5

Thus, about half of all of the associ- ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE OF THE DIFFERENCES
ates given could not be attributed to AMONG THE MEAN SD RATINGS
S learning a specific UCS word as a OF CUED ASSOCIATES
paired associate to a CS syllable. A
non-UCS word, which was given as an Source df MS F
associate to a CS syllable, will be Meanings (M) 2 16.460 9.058***
called a cued associate in subsequent Groups (G) 1 .250
discussion. A word was considered as M XG 2 2.735 1.505
Error 111 1.817
a cued associate if it was not spelled Total 116
exactly the same as any one of the
UCS words. For example, ARCHERY, *** f < .001.

despite some formal similarity to the

UCS word ARCHED, was considered a
cued associate.
Table 4 presents the number and
nature of the cued associates given as
a function of the paired UCS word
group, as well as the means and SDs
of the SD ratings for these cued
associates. As can be seen, the means
are ordered as expected on the basis
of the experimental hypothesis, i.e.,
cued word associations given in re-
sponse to the CS syllable paired with
positive UCS words tend to be posi-
tive, those paired with the negative
UCS words tend to be negative, and
those paired with neutral UCS words
tend to fall between these extreme
groups.
Since the means presented in Table
4 are dependent on each S's responses
and since the number of responses per
condition are confounded over 5s,
there is no completely adequate
statistic to test the significance of the
differences among these mean SD
ratings. Consequently, a simple 3 X 2
factorial analysis of variance, which
in effect disregards within-S correla-
tion, was performed on these data.
The results of these analyses indicate
that the evaluative SD rating of a
cued associate to an originally neutral
CS nonsense syllable is a function of
the evaluative SD rating of the UCS
words paired with that CS syllable.
Evaluative characteristics of recalled
associates,Approximately 50% of
the associates given in response to

TABLE 6
NUMBER AND NATURE OF THE SPECIFIC UCS WORDS PRODUCED AS ASSOCIATES AS A FUNCTION
OF THE CONDITIONED MEANING CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CS SYLLABLE

Conditioned
Experimental Meaning Charac- Number and Nature of Specific UCS Words Total
Group teristics of CS Produced as Associates to CS Syllables
Syllables

Positive Neutral Negative

i Positive 17 0 1 18
Neutral 13 6 1 20
Negative 1 5 12 18
ii Positive" 18 2 1 21
Neutral" 5 6 5 16
Negative" 2 2 14 18

* A different S in each of these conditions failed to produce an associate in the 20-sec, association period,
 WORD ASSOCIATION AND CONDITIONED MEANING
each of the three nonsense syllables
for both groups were the UCS words
themselves. Table 6 presents the
semantic characteristics of the specific
UCS word recalled as a function of
the connotative characteristics of the
CS syllables. With the sole exception
of the UCS words recalled in response
to the CS syllables conditioned neu-
tral, the UCS words recalled had the
same connotation as was conditioned
to the CS syllable. This effect is quite
strong for both the positively and
negatively conditioned syllables. A
chi square test, done on the 3 X 3
table obtained by collapsing across
experimental groups, yielded a value
of 63.46 (df = 4; p < .001). These
results suggest that the semantic
characteristics of the UCS word re-
called as a paired associate to a CS
syllable tends to have the same con-
notation as was conditioned to the CS
syllable. Discrimination of the evalu-
ative characteristics of the UCS words
seems to have occurred, such that
intrusions from the opposite evalu-
ative UCS word class do not occur.
DISCUSSION
The results of the present study indi-
cate that the meaning response aroused
by a verbal stimulus is an important
factor affecting the evocation of associa-
tive responses. We have seen that the
evaluative meaning of a word associate
is similar to that of its evoking stimulus.
This implies, as both Osgood (1953) and
Staats (1961) have suggested, that
meaning responses often precede, and to
a large extent, determine the connotative
characteristics of associated responses.
Contrary to Staats' supposition that
the language conditioning procedure
provides a technique for the conditioning
of meaning without the concomitant
conditioning of specific words to CS
syllables, the present results indicate
that about 50% of the UCS words are
recalled by 5s. Using differences in the
459
SD ratings of CS syllables after language
conditioning as a dependent variable, is,
therefore, open to the criticism that it is
the UCS words which are recalled, and
are being rated, rather than the CS
syllable itself. It is, of course, possible
to argue that UCS syllables are recalled
because of the meaning response condi-
tioned to the CS syllable, i.e., if associa-
tions are determined by the meaning
response aroused by the CS syllable then
the UCS words are produced because
they most nearly approximate the mean-
ing response now conditioned to the CS.
The results presented in Table 6 offer
some support for this hypothesis by
showing that there are few intrusions in
recall from UCS word groups having
different evaluative characteristics than
those conditioned to the CS syllable.
Where specific UCS syllables are re-
called, they are congruent in connotation
to the evoking CS syllable. For syl-
lables conditioned neutral, however,
intrusions from other UCS lists did occur.
The single UCS word most often inap-
propriately intruded as an associate to
the neutral CS syllable was HOUSE. An
examination of many of the words con-
tained in the neutral UCS word group
(ARCHED, BOULDER, HEAVY, MALLET,
BLOCK) indicates that semantic attributes
other than evaluative (e.g., potency)
may have been conditioned to this
syllable, and that the recall or association
of the word HOUSE may have been made
in response to these attributes. The
recall of UCS words given in response to
the neutral CS syllable then follows the
same rule as does recall given in response
to the positive and negative CS syllables.
Although this analysis provides a
possible explanation for the pattern of
recall of UCS words in the present study,
it does not answer the methodological
criticism raised earlier. At present, the
operations involved in the language con-
ditioning procedure do not permit us to
determine if changes in the SD ratings
of CS syllables are the result of condi-
tioned meaning responses or are the
result of simple paired-associate recall
of UCS words.
The results involving cued word
460 HOWARD R. POLLIO
associates, however, clearly demonstrate
the effect of conditioned meaning re-
sponses on word association. Here,
associative responses were not contained
in any of the original UCS word lists,
although they were similar in evaluative
connotation to these words. It seems
that when 5s are unable to utilize specific
word-word connections (as occurs in
in paired-associate recall) they pro-
duce word associations largely on the
basis of conditioned meaning. Perhaps
the absence of direct word-word con-
nections is a necessary condition for
the utilization of conditioned meaning
as the primary determiner of overt
word association.
These analyses suggest that both
recall and association are affected by the
meaning response common to a group
of words paired with an originally neutral
stimulus. In terms of recall, the present
results indicate that intrusion errors
occur only infrequently if the to-be-
recalled material is homogeneous with
respect to a shared connotative dimen-
sion. In terms of word association, the
present results indicate that in the
absence of strong word-word connections
among words, stimulus-aroused meaning
responses precede and determine sub-
sequent associated responses. Under this
condition associative responses are largely
the result of similarity in meaning be-
tween the stimulus and response words.
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