Association

• The Reaction Time experiment is part and parcel of an experimental tradition

which has put its main emphasis on the analysis of behaviour into stimulus and
response elements and which has used the concept of association as its primary
principle of organization of behaviour.
• In the Reaction Time experiments, we are concerned primarily with the speed with
which a sensory stimulus can evoke an associated motor response.
• In the same experimental tradition, much interest has centred on the various kinds
of responses that a given stimulus can evoke and the differences in speed among
various kinds of responses.
• This is what is called as experimental investigations of association especially
those which call for verbal responses and use of words as stimuli.
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Concept of Association
• Concept of association gives rise to experiments and pervades their interpretation.
• Analysis of behaviour into elements – however broadly or narrowly theses
elements may be defined – at once raises the question of the law (s) governing the
sequence of elements.
• The coherent flow of language and thought, orderliness of complex series of motor
acts, reliable functioning of our vast hierarchy of habits – all these illustrate the
lawful sequence of acts (stimulus-response elements) which characterizes
behaviour.
• To account for such lawful sequences, the principle of association has been
invoked.
• The most prominent law governing formation of associations is the principle of
contiguity according to which events that occur together or in immediate
succession are associated. After A and B have occurred together or immediately
following each other, the occurrence of A alone is likely to bring about B.
History
• The concept of association has had a long and distinguished history in
experimental psychology. The definition of the elements which are associated has
been varied and there has been much debate about the laws of association.
• In addition to contiguity, several principles – such as frequency, similarity and
vividness – have been suggested at one time or another but they have all
remained secondary to contiguity.
Applications
• The concept of association has been so handy because it has been so useful to
the experimenter in two broad areas:
1. Many phenomena in the field of learning are conveniently described and
analysed as the establishment of new associations
2. Many reactions to environmental stimuli especially verbal reactions may be
ascribed to the functioning of already well established associations.
• The experimental procedures have as their purpose the sampling and analysis of
the rich store of verbal associations which man accumulates through use of
language.
Types of Verbal Association Experiments
• In these experiments, the subject’s task is to respond by a word or words, usually
as quickly as he can after presentation of the stimulus. According to the type of
stimulus used, they can be grouped under two general headings –
1. object-word association
2. word-word association.
Object-Word Association
• In this experiment, the stimulus may be almost any kind of object – a piece of
colored paper, a geometric design, an object of daily use – and the subject is
instructed to react to this object with a word e.g. to name the object.
• Or it may be a visually printed word which must be read aloud. Since the spoken
word carries the meaning of the object, such experiments, are designed to test the
speed with which the verbal meaning of an object can be reported.
• Verbal associations are slower than simple motor reactions.
• For e.g. a subject will take about 500 milliseconds to name a color, as compared
with a motor reaction time of 180 milliseconds to a simple light stimulus.
• A naming response is slower than a reading response – to read the printed name
of a color requires on the average about 350 milliseconds.
• In summary, object-word association experiments measures the speed of
verbalization.
• The question is – How quickly can the appropriate verbal response be given in the
presence of an object or conventional symbol?
• The answer is that verbalization tends to be rather slow, certainly as compared
with a simple motor reaction.
• By simple motor reaction, the subject merely indicates that “something is there”. In
giving a verbal association, the subject must make a selective response – the word
must be appropriate to the object and hence such a selective reaction takes time.
Word-Word Association : Free and Controlled
• In these experiments, both stimulus word and response are spoken words. The
relation between the stimulus word and the response word may or may not be
prescribed.
• In the free association experiment, the subject responds with the very first word
that occurs to him.
• In the case of controlled association, the type of response is determined by the
instructions given to the subject.
• Thus he may be required to respond to a stimulus word by naming the genus of
which the stimulus word is a species (dog-mammal, trout-fish) for any variety of
relationships.
• Such control of association may be more or less complete.
• There may be only one correct response to the stimulus word e.g. naming the
genus of which the stimulus word is a species, or there may be several alternative
responses e.g. naming a species when the stimulus word is a genus.
• The contrast between free and controlled association is perhaps somewhat
misleading:
1. There is no implication that one is haphazard and the other lawful. Both types of
association alike must be considered to be lawfully determined.
2. In case of controlled associations, experimental instructions provide a determining
tendency – the direction of associations is regulated by the instructions, meaning
that association is controlled externally.
3. When association is free, the determination is internal. The subject’s past
experiences, his motives and habits of thought constitute the determining
tendencies which cause him to respond with one word rather than another.
Speed of Word-Word Associations
• The speed of both free and controlled associations varies over a wide range,
depending on the particular word in conjunction with the kind of instruction.
• In general, the more fully controlled the association is by instructions, the shorter
the Reaction Time tends to be, provided factors such as familiarity of words are
held constant.
• Since association times are distinguished by great variability from word to word and
from subject to subject, it is difficult to state truly representative average values.
• For controlled word association, a median value of a little less than 1 second
probably represents a fair estimate. For free association, the average value should
be put higher. Averages as low as 1100 milliseconds and as high as 2000
milliseconds have been reported.
• The most notable fact about the distribution of free association times is the unusual
slowness of some responses. Responses which take 5 or even 10 seconds are
infrequent but not out of the ordinary. Such very slow responses may sometimes
be indicative of emotional blocks.
Classification of Associations
• The analysis of verbal associations does not end with measurements of their
speed.
• The kinds of responses which are given are of interest.
• Investigators have hoped for a long time that the classification of verbal
associations would provide an important instrument for the study of individual
differences in cognitive functions.
• Two main approaches have been used in the evaluation of verbal associations:
1. Frequency tables
2. Content analysis
Frequency tables:
• When we administer a free association test to a large representative sample of
subjects, we obtain a distribution of responses to each stimulus word.
• We can tabulate the frequency with which the various responses are given, ranging
from the most frequent associations given by a plurality of the subjects to those
which are highly individual and given only by one in a 1000 subjects.
• By means of such a frequency table, we can evaluate any given association in
terms of the relative frequency with which it occurs in the sample.
• To provide a standard basis for the measurement of individual differences, several
sets of such frequency tables have been worked out. The first and best known are
the Kent-Rosanoff frequency tables. They contain frequency distributions of
responses given by a sample of 1000 subjects to 100 common nouns under
standard conditions.
• The sample used by Kent and Rosanoff included subjects of both sexes whose
ages ranged from 8 to over 80 years. They came from different geographical areas
and varied widely in intelligence and education.
• Their subjects were not, however, a truly representative sample of the population
and this fact makes the application of their frequency tables somewhat uncertain.
• There are other frequency tables based on more systematically controlled samples:
the O’Connor tables obtained from a sample of 1000 adult men and the Woodrow-
Lowell tables based on the responses of 1000 urban school children.
• In using these tables, it is important to bear in mind the nature of the sample on
which they are based.
• If the sample is not representative of the population to which the subject belongs,
the use of the tables becomes at best, hazardous.
• Such a procedure would be analogous to the use of test norms with subjects to
whom the norms do not apply such as the application of adult intelligence norms to
the performance of children or vice versa.
• Analysis of word associations by means of frequency tables has shown that
subjects may differ widely in the conventionality of their responses.
• A measure of conformance can be obtained by finding the frequency with which a
subject’s responses are given in the population. The best measure of conformance
is, perhaps, the median of population frequencies for the responses given by him.
When this measure is applied, the most striking differences are found between
normal subjects and mental patients.
• Whereas normal subjects give, on the average, over 90% common reactions, the
percentage of such responses drops to about 70% in the case of patients. People
suffering from schizophrenia in particular, gave bizarre, unusual associations
including neologisms and incoherent responses.
• By the use of frequency tables, the conventionality of a subject’s responses can
thus be gauged – the degree to which his associations form common or unique
patterns. The more frequent a response, the more quickly it is given. This
generalization is known as Marbe’s law. Frequency and speed are two
complementary ways in which the effective strength of associations expresses
itself. The well established response is not only elicited frequently and regularly but
also more quickly.
Content Analysis
• Not satisfied with sheer frequency counts, investigators have long been interested
in the classification of associations according to the content of the responses.They
hoped to find significant correlations between the content of associative responses
and intellectual, aesthetic and emotional characteristics of the subjects.
• Many different classifications of associations have been attempted. The variety of
associative responses is rich, indeed, and the categories used in their classification
have been correspondingly numerous.
• Classifications were based on the grammatical and logical relationships between
the stimulus and the response word, on the type of evaluation of the stimulus word
contained in the response, on the objectivity as against the egocentricity of the
response and so on.
• Many of these categories were not mutually exclusive. Little purpose would be
served by a detailed survey of these various classifications. Following is the
classification proposed by Woodworth which under four general headings,
subsumes most of the more specific detailed classifications used by experimental
and clinical workers. These categories are as follows:
1. Definitions: These include synonyms e.g. justice-righ and supraordinates e.g.
sheep-animal. Such responses are especially frequent when the subject is not
very familiar with the stimulus word and uses the responses to clarify its
meaning.
2. Completions or Predications: Such responses tell something about the
stimulus, elaborate on it. For e.g. ocean-blue, bread-eat. Children are more
prone to such responses than adults, and literary individuals use them more
frequently than scientifically oriented ones. Such responses seem to stem from a
descriptive rather an analytic approach.
3. Coordinates: The stimulus-response relationship represents a juxtaposition of
terms rather than a subordination or supraordination. Stimulus-response pairs
like hunger-appetite, religion-church etc. These words are juxtaposed because
they refer to the same realm of activity or feeling are examples of the same class
of events and so on. The frequently used contrast responses such as black-
white, long-short belong to the same category. Adult subjects give more
coordinate associations than children. Again, a difference between individuals
with a literary and a scientific orientation has been reported, coordinate
responses being more frequent among the scientists.
Coordinate responses are more analytical or conceptual as compared with
completion responses.
4. Valuations & Personal associations: Here, large group of responses which
stem from a subject’s unique past experiences, from his valuations and attitudes,
needs and emotions. Some of these responses are well described as egocentric
because they represent a personal reaction of the subject to the stimulus word. The
scheme produced here has the virtue of comprehensiveness and uses clear and
well defined, but at the same time flexible, categories. Although the reader may
encounter alternative classifications with valid claims for consideration, Woodworth’s
scheme may be invaluable to the experimenter and clinician in a first organization of
the results of an association experiment.
Clinical & Diagnostic use of Associations
• We have emphasized throughout that word associations should not be regarded as
haphazard but as lawfully determined by instructions and tendencies within the
individual.
• In many cases, such determining tendencies are attributable not so much to the
conventions of logic and language but rather to the personal experiences, needs
and values of the individual.
• For this reason, the word association procedure is of value in diagnosing sources
of emotional disturbance.
Complex Indicators
• The assumption is made that stimulus words which tap sources of emotional
disturbance (of which the subject himself may be completely unaware) will produce
responses sufficiently unusual to catch the examiner’s attention and to convey a
suggestion of trouble. Thus, the clinicians’ search has been for complex indicators
in word association.
• A large no.of indicators have at one time or another been proposed and tested
but only a few have proved reliable. Perhaps foremost among these is an unusual
increase in the association time.
• Although association time are typically quite variable, each subject has a normal
range within which most of his responses fall. Response times falling outside this
typical range, especially unusually long ones, frequently spell trouble.
• Sometimes it is not the “charged” word itself which yields the abnormally long
association time but the one following it, as if it took some time for the full impact
of the emotional stimulus to manifest itself.
• Other disruptions of the normal response pattern have also served as complex
indicators. Among these are repetition of the stimulus word, misunderstanding of
the stimulus and highly incongruent or bizarre responses. It seems as if the
subject were using such means (in all likelihood without being aware of doing so)
to defend himself against the full emotional impact of the stimulus word.
• There is then, a variety of complex indicators which an emotionally charged
stimulus word may arouse. How are these indicators related to each other? Does
the occurrence of one increase the probability that the others will appear?
• If the indicators were systematically associated with each other, our confidence in
their validity would be increased.
• A thorough investigation of the correlations among the various complex indicators
has shown that a few of them do, indeed, tend to be regularly accompanied by
others, notably long association time, misunderstanding of the stimulus and
repetition of the stimulus.
• When one of these indicators is present, there is a good chance that some other
emotional response will appear as well. This correlation among indicators is
presumptive evidence for their validity.
Diagnostic Applications
• As a diagnostic tool, the word association exp., has had two main uses:
1. As an adjunct to other methods of psychiatric diagnosis
2. As one in a battery of procedures aimed at the detection of guilt
• The word association procedure may help the psychiatrist localize the general
area of his patient’s difficulties. Thus C.G.Jung, the psychiatrist who pioneered in
the study of word associations, devised a standard list of 100 stimulus words
related to common sources of emotional difficulties (sickness, financial difficulties,
marital problems etc). He found that the diagnostic hunches provided by the
word-association test were frequently borne out by more intensive psychoanalytic
procedures.
• Additional validation of the complex indicators is provided by correlations with
other indices of emotional disturbance such as galvanic skin response and
fluctuations in respiration. The correlations have tended to be positive but not
always statistically significant.
• The word association test is used in a similar manner in the detection of guilt. A
word list is prepared in which words related to the crime, such as names of
objects stolen, are scattered through a list of presumably “neutral” items.
• This test is administered to the subject as well as to control subjects. If the
suspect shows unusual disturbances in response to the critical words, such as
significant increases in RT, as compared with the controls, this fact is taken as
presumptive evidence of his guilt.
• The uncertainties of such a procedure are obvious. It is difficult to be sure that the
neutral words with which the critical words are compared are indeed neutral. In
addition, emotional responses to the critical words may not necessarily be due to
guilt.
• The subject may be acquainted with the details of the crime, and aware of the
suspicion resting on him. Under such circumstances he may well react
emotionally to the critical words.
• In spite of such limitations, the word association technique has at times helped in
the discovery of guilty persons, though failures also have been reported. The
technique has received dramatic (though indirect) confirmation through the use of
hypnosis.
• It is possible to suggest to a subject under deep hypnosis that he has committed
a certain crime and thus, to induce guilt feelings in him. As long as the hypnotic
suggestion lasts, these guilt feelings may, indeed, be profound.
• The subject is given a word-association test before and after the hypnotic
suggestion has been accepted by him. His responses to the critical crime stimuli
differ significantly on the two occasions. After he has accepted the suggestion,
guilt indicators appear among his responses – lengthened association times,
repetitions of stimulus etc. When the suggestion is removed, the guilt indicators
disappear.
• Thus, the experimental manipulation of guilt feelings produces predictable
changes in the word associations. It must be remembered, however, that deep
hypnosis is a very unusual state, indeed, an it would be rash to generalize too
confidently from such exps. to the general validity of the word association
technique.
• In summary, then, word association technique is at best an adjunct to other
diagnostic techniques. It may help to narrow down the range of suspects, to
locate the probable focus of a patient’s emotional difficulties. No definite
conclusion can, however, be based on word associations alone. It must always
be considered in conjunction with other techniques and carefully checked by
other evidence.