MEMORY, 2009, 17 (1), 816

The role of associative strength in children’s false

memory illusions

Mark L. Howe, Marina C. Wimmer, and Katrina Blease

Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

The effects of associative strength on rates of 7- and 11-year-old children’s true and false memories were
examined when category and Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) lists were used to cue the same
critical lure. Backward associative strength (BAS) was varied such that the category and DRM lists had
the same strength (DRM
category), DRM lists had more BAS (DRM
category), or category lists had
more BAS (DRMBcategory). If BAS drives children’s false memories then BAS, not the type of relation
across items in a list, should determine false memory production. The results confirmed this prediction
using both recall and recognition measures: (1) both true and false memories increased with age, (2) true
memory was better for category than DRM lists but there were no differences for false memory, and (3)
at all ages, false memories varied predictably with changes in BAS but were unaffected by list-type
manipulations. These findings are discussed in the context of models of false memory development.

Keywords: DRM paradigm; False memories; Associative-activation theory; Memory development; Children’s
false memory.

Young children are less susceptible to false
memories than older children and adults, espe-
cially when those false memories are generated
spontaneously as in the Deese-Roediger-McDer-
mott (DRM; Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDer-
mott, 1995) paradigm (Brainerd & Reyna, 2005;
Howe, 2005, 2006, 2008a; Howe, Gagnon, &
Thouas, 2008). Briefly, in the DRM task children
are presented lists of words (e.g., bed, rest, wake,
tired, dream, etc.) that are related to a non-
presented but related concept sleep. The non-
presented item, also termed the critical lure, is
often reported along with presented list items
during subsequent recall or recognition tasks.
The false memory effect arising from the
DRM paradigm is a fairly robust phenomenon
in adults and children but the underlying mechan-
isms are less clear. A recent theoretical explana-
tion of this effect suggests that children’s false
memories, like adults’ (e.g., Gallo, 2006; Kimball,
Smith, & Kahana, 2007), are a product of
associative activation (Howe, 2006, 2008a,
2008b; Howe et al., 2008; Howe, Wimmer,
Gagnon, & Plumpton, in press). According to
this associative-activation theory (AAT), list
items (e.g., bed, rest) directly activate the critical
lure (i.e., SLEEP) through the process of spread-
ing activation in a semantic network (occurring at
study, at test, or both). This theory is similar to
other extant, associative models (e.g., Kimball et
al., 2007) and contains assumptions concerning
spreading activation mechanisms like those found
in earlier models (e.g., Anderson, 1983; Anderson
& Bower, 1973; Collins & Loftus, 1975). In
particular, presented items are assumed to acti-
vate their memory representations and this acti-
vation spreads to other concepts via links
throughout an associative network. Because list

Address correspondence to: Mark L. Howe, Centre for Research in Human Development, Department of Psychology, Lancaster
University, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK. E-mail: mark.howe@lancaster.ac.uk
This research was supported by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council of the United Kingdom (RES-062-23-
0452) to Mark L. Howe.

# 2008 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
http://www.psypress.com/memory DOI:10.1080/09658210802438474
 ASSOCIATIVE STRENGTH AND CHILDREN’S FALSE MEMORY
items are associated with the non-presented
critical lure, this lure is activated numerous times
and is later falsely remembered as being part of
the studied set. More recent models still rely on
associative connectivity, but incorporate more
intricate, multiplicative encoding and retrieval
rules (e.g., see Kimball et al., 2007). Although
the details are not critical for current purposes, it
is important to note that the strength of associa-
tive relationships between studied items and the
critical lure plays a key role in determining the
magnitude of false memory illusions.
Howe (2005, 2006, 2008a, 2008b; Howe et al.,
2008) suggests that like adults’, children’s false
memories are driven by associative activation. In
particular, age-related increases in children’s false
memory may be due to increases in the auto-
maticity with which children access or activate
associations in their knowledge base, associations
that mediate false remembering. Consistent with
adult research, associative relations1 between list
items and the critical lure are important contri-
butors to the false memory illusion (Deese, 1959;
McEvoy, Nelson, & Komatsu, 1999; Roediger,
Watson, McDermott, & Gallo, 2001; Underwood,
1965). The strength of the associative links
between list items and the critical lure, also
termed backward associative strength (BAS), is
indicative of a list’s ability to produce false
memories such that lists with very low BAS yield
low rates of false memories in adults (Gallo &
Roediger, 2002) and children (Brainerd, Forrest,
Karibian, & Reyna, 2006; Howe, Cicchetti, Toth,
& Cerrito, 2004). Moreover, Roediger et al.
(2001) determined that BAS was the strongest
predictor for adults’ false memories when word
length, word frequency, concreteness, the associa-
tive strength between the critical lure and the list
items (or forward associative strength), connec-
tivity (number of inter-item associations), and
true recall were taken into consideration. Thus, as
suggested by AAT, associative strength, particu-
1
Associative relations have routinely been defined quite
broadly and include concept pairs and larger groupings that
are cohesive given any similarity bond (e.g., temporal
contiguity, spatial proximity, feature overlap, shared
perceptual properties, categorical membership, phonological
or orthographic similarity, etc.). Although some similarities
may be more likely to give rise to false memories than others
(Park et al., 2005), and this may vary developmentally
(Dewhurst & Robinson, 2004), associations are thought to
include both perceptual and conceptual features (see Howe,
2005, 2008a, 2008b). It is this sense of the term ‘‘associative
relations’’ we refer to in this article.
9
larly BAS, plays a key role in children’s and
adults’ production of false memories.
The difference between children’s and adults’
false memories may be the automaticity of
associative activation. For example children’s
false memory levels differ when receiving differ-
ent remember or forget instructions (Howe,
2005). When children receive either remember
instructions (‘‘keep remembering the words on
this list’’) or forget instructions (‘‘this was just a
practice list, you can forget it’’) significantly fewer
false memories occur in the forgetting condition
than in a control condition (with no instructions),
whereas significantly more false memories occur
with the remember instruction than in the control
condition. In contrast, adults’ false memories are
as high with forgetting instructions as in a control
condition (Kimball & Bjork, 2002). Because for
adults false memories occur automatically at the
time of study or test, inhibition is difficult.
Furthermore, for adults false memories occur
even when they have been alerted beforehand
about the false memory phenomenon. Thus, adult
participants are not fully able to voluntarily
control the occurrence of false memories (Gallo,
Roberts, & Seamon, 1997; McDermott & Roedi-
ger, 1998). In other words, children but not adults
are able to inhibit false memories when instructed
to do so, suggesting that such memories are less
automatic in children than adults.
To summarise, there is considerable evidence
suggesting that the associative strength between
list items and the critical lure, BAS, is a key
explanation for the occurrence of the false
memory phenomenon and it is the automaticity
of activation that may differ between children’s
and adults’ false memory production. One ques-
tion that arises from this is whether this strong
correlation between BAS and false memories is
independent of the type of association. For
example, recent research also suggests that chil-
dren’s false memories not only occur for the
DRM paradigm but also for material that is
categorically associated, such as members of the
same taxonomic category (e.g., banana, kiwi,
orange, pear . . . are all fruits) (Brainerd, Holliday,
& Reyna, 2004; Howe, 2006; Seamon, Luo,
Schlegel, Greene, & Goldenberg, 2000). The
difference between the two types of lists is that
categorical lists convey only one level of
association*that is, taxonomy (such as different
kinds of fruits, types of clothing, etc.)*whereas
DRM lists contain different levels of associations
(for example, awake and SLEEP are antonyms,
10 HOWE, WIMMER, BLEASE
bed and SLEEP have a functional association, rest
and SLEEP share a situational association etc.).
Interestingly, despite these differences in types of
associations (i.e., taxonomic vs multiple diverse
associations) false memories occur in both types
of lists. However, few studies have provided
independent manipulations of both associative
strength (e.g., BAS) and type of list (i.e., catego-
rical vs DRM). In a recent exception to this,
Hutchison and Balota (2005) found that when the
level of association varied (i.e., lists either con-
verged on a single meaning or on multiple mean-
ings of a homophone), but associative activation
was held constant, adults’ false recognition rates
did not differ. Recent work (Howe, 2006, Exp. 2)
has shown that children as young as 5 years old
can use categorical relations from blocked lists to
facilitate true recall (i.e., category lists were
better recalled than DRM lists). However, de-
spite their ability to spontaneously extract the
thematic relationship across list items, young
children’s rates of false recall did not change
and remained lower than that of older children
and adults.
What these and other recent studies (e.g.,
Howe et al., in press) have shown is that there
is a clear dissociation of true and false memory.
Both Hutchison and Balota (2005) and Howe
(2006; Howe et al., in press) have shown that rates
of true and false memories are influenced by
different factors, where taxonomic relations (i.e.,
categorised material) can increase true but not
false memories, and the strength of associative
relations (between list members and the critical
lure) affects false but not true memories. One
potential criticism of the research on which these
conclusions are based is that it has relied on
comparisons between category and DRM lists
that not only vary in the items that are studied but
also in the critical lures they are meant to
activate. A stronger case for an associative
activation model might be made if false memories
are driven by BAS independent of type of
association (i.e., DRM vs category) if the same
critical lure was used for both the category and
DRM lists. Here we get a more direct test of
associative activation because although the rela-
tions among the studied items and the critical lure
differ in theoretically important ways (one being
vertically connective or superordinate and the
other being horizontal or ‘‘classically’’ associative,
see Park, Shobe, & Kihlstrom, 2005), the critical
lure that is potentially being activated is identical
regardless of items being studied. Thus, in this
design the critical lure is not confounded with list
type as it has been in previous research. What this
means is that the degree to which categorical
connectivity or associative strength drives false
memories is no longer confounded with the
nature of the critical lure. To this end, in the
experiment reported in this article we varied list
type while keeping the critical lure constant.
In addition, we varied whether BAS was
stronger in the category list or the DRM list.
Specifically, for a third of the lists both the
category and DRM lists had the same BAS
(DRM
category), for another third BAS was
higher for the DRM lists (DRM
category), and
for the final third of the lists BAS was higher for
the category lists (DRMBcategory). According
to AAT, false memory rates should depend
exclusively on BAS regardless of age and list type.
METHOD
Participants
A total of 70 children (48% male) participated in
this experiment: 35 7-year-olds (M
7.5, SD
4
months) and 35 11-year-olds (M
11.6, SD
3
months). All children (predominantly White and
middle class) were tested following parental
consent and their own assent on the day of
testing.
Design, materials, and procedure
A 2 (List: DRM vs Category)3 (BAS: equal vs.
higher vs lower)2 (Age: 7- vs 11-year-olds)
design was used where list and BAS were
manipulated within participants and age was
between participants.
A total of 24 five-item lists (12 DRM lists and
12 category lists; see Appendix) were constructed.
The reason for using only five items for each list
had to do with the constraints associated with
constructing materials that (a) used the same
critical lure for both the DRM and category lists
and (b) matched the requirements for variation in
BAS across DRM and category lists. Although list
length does affect false memory rates in adults, it
has only minimal effects on children’s false
memory production (see Sugrue & Hayne,
2006). Participants were presented with a total
of 12 lists, 6 DRM and 6 category, 4 of which
came from the each of the three BAS groupings
 ASSOCIATIVE STRENGTH AND CHILDREN’S FALSE MEMORY
(DRM
category, DRM
category, DRMBca-
tegory). Each list for the individual participants
referred to a single critical lure. That is, if a
participant received a DRM list (e.g., nest, wings,
feather, cage, fly) for a particular critical lure (e.g.,
bird) they did not also receive the category list
(e.g., bluejay, canary, parrot, robin, eagle) for that
lure. Similarly, if a participant received a category
list (e.g., tulip, daisy, rose, pansy, lilac) for a
particular critical lure (e.g., flower) they did not
also receive the DRM list (e.g., petals, vase,
bloom, stem, garden) for that lure. All critical
lures were tested equally often using the DRM
and category lists by counterbalancing which list
was presented across participants.
The BAS norms were obtained from Nelson,
McEvoy, and Schreiber (1999) and Roediger et al.
(2001). For lists that did not differ in associative
strength (DRM
category) there was no signifi-
cant difference in their total BAS, t(3)
0.92, p

.43. When associative strength was greater in the
DRM than the category lists (DRM
category)
BAS was significantly higher for the category items
than the DRM items, t(3)
5.03, p
.02. Finally,
when associative strength was greater in the
category than the DRM lists (DRMBcategory)
BAS was significantly higher for the category items
than the DRM items, t(3)
11.56, p
.001. Over-
all, the DRM and category list items did not differ
in their mean word frequency (norms taken from
Stuart, Masterson, Dixon, & Quinlan, 19931996),
t(11)
1.30, p
.22. Moreover, the critical lures
did not differ in word frequency across the three
levels of BAS, F(2, 9)
1.18, p
.35.
Lists were read aloud by the experimenter at a
2-second rate per item. Prior to the presentation
of the first list, participants were given general
memory instructions to listen carefully to the
words on the list, as they would be asked to recall
the words later. Following these instructions,
participants were read the first list. Following
list presentation, participants were given a 30-
second distractor task (circling randomised pairs
of letters) prior to recall. Once recall of the first
list was complete, the next cycle began. This
procedure was repeated for the remaining 11
lists. Presentation and recall was oral and list
order was randomised within each age group.
Following the recall phase, children participated
in a standard recognition test where they were
instructed to say ‘‘yes’’ if the presented item had
appeared in an earlier list and to say ‘‘no’’ if it had
not appeared in an earlier list. This task consisted
of 72 items, 36 targets (items previously pre-
11
sented, 3 from each list), 12 critical lures, 12
associatively related but not presented items (6
from the last few positions of the DRM lists and
6 from the last few positions of the category lists),
and 12 unrelated items (6 unrelated lures from
different DRM lists and 6 unrelated lures from
different category lists).
RESULTS
Preliminary analyses indicated no main effect or
interactions involving gender, so this variable was
eliminated from subsequent analyses. Consistent
with the hypotheses for this study, rates of true
and false recall and true and false recognition
were analysed separately.
True recall
The proportion of items correctly recalled was
analysed using a 2 (List: DRM vs category)3
(BAS: equal vs higher vs lower)2 (Age: 7- vs 11-
year-olds) analysis of variance (ANOVA). The
results showed a main effect for age,
F(1, 68)
76.04, pB.001, h2
.53, where 7-year-
olds (M
.45) recalled less than 11-year-olds
(M
.68). There was also a main effect for list,
F(1, 68)
17.39, pB.001, h2
.204, where the
mean proportion of true recall for category lists
(M
.60) was greater than that for DRM lists
(M
.53). This same effect is typical in studies of
this sort (e.g., Howe, 2006) although the mean
recall rates are higher than usual (not unexpected
given the shorter lists). No other main effects or
interactions were significant.
False recall
The proportion of items falsely recalled was
analysed using a 2 (List: DRM vs category)3
(BAS: equal vs higher vs lower)2 (Age: 7- vs
11-year-olds) ANOVA. The results showed a
main effect for age, F(1, 68)
4.12, pB.05,
h2
.057, where 7-year-olds (M
.24) falsely
recalled fewer items than 11-year-olds (M
.31).
There was also a main effect for BAS,
F(2, 136)
40.37, pB.001, h2
.372, where post-
hoc Newman-Keuls tests (pB.05) revealed that,
regardless of list (DRM or category), lists equal in
BAS (M
.20) resulted in similar levels of false
recall as lists with lower levels of BAS (M
.20)
12 HOWE, WIMMER, BLEASE
and both exhibited lower levels of false recall
than lists higher in BAS (M
.43). No other main
effects or interactions were significant.
True recognition
The proportion of items correctly recognised was
analysed using a 2 (List: DRM vs category)3
(BAS: equal vs higher vs lower)2 (Age: 7- vs
11-year-olds) ANOVA. The results showed a
main effect for age, F(1, 68)
13.52, pB.001,
h2
.17, where 7-year-olds (M
.73) correctly
recognised less than 11-year-olds (M
.82). There
was also a main effect for list, F(1, 68)
5.80, pB
.02, h2
.079, where the mean proportion of true
recognition for category lists (M
.80) was
greater than that for DRM lists (M
.76). No
other main effects or interactions were significant
and the effects did not differ when A? was
analysed rather than raw recognition scores.
False recognition
The proportion of items falsely recognised was
analysed using a 2 (List: DRM vs category)3
(BAS: equal vs higher vs lower)2 (Age: 7- vs
11-year-olds) ANOVA. The results showed a
main effect for age, F(1, 68)
4.80, pB.05, h2

.066, where 7-year-olds (M
.48) falsely recog-
nised fewer items than 11-year-olds (M
.57).
There was also a main effect for BAS, F(2, 136)

23.60, pB.001, h2
.258, where post-hoc New-
man-Keuls tests (pB.05) revealed that, regard-
less of list (DRM or category), lists equal in BAS
(M
.47) resulted in similar levels of false recog-
nition as lists with lower levels of BAS (M
.46)
and both exhibited lower levels of false recogni-
tion than lists higher in BAS (M
.65). No other
main effects or interactions were significant and
the effects did not differ when A? was analysed
rather than raw recognition scores.
DISCUSSION
The results of this experiment are clear and
consistent. Both true and false recall and recogni-
tion increased with age, a finding typical in the
memory development literature and one that is
consistent with AAT. Similarly, consistent with
previous research and the predictions derived from
AAT, true (but not false) recall and recognition
were higher for categorised than DRM lists,
regardless of age. That is, 7- and 11-year-old
children were able to take advantage of the
additional categorical relations in these lists to
improve correct recollection but this same rela-
tional information did not affect false memory
rates.
Most important, false (but not true) recall and
recognition was affected by BAS. That is, lists
high in BAS, regardless of whether they were
category or DRM, produced higher levels of false
recollection than lists lower or equivalent in BAS.
This finding is consistent with the predictions
derived from AAT and shows clearly that, regard-
less of type of association (i.e., taxonomic such as
in category lists vs multi-levelled such as in DRM
lists), false recollections were more frequent in
high BAS conditions.
AAT also predicted that connections available
in categorised lists should enhance true recall but
should not have an impact on false recall unless
they contributed to the overall associative activa-
tion of the critical lure. Like prior research
(Howe, 2006; Howe et al., 2008), it is this outcome
that was obtained in the experiment reported in
this article. Specifically, considering only those
comparisons between category and DRM lists,
false recall and recognition rates were no greater
for category lists than DRM lists. Rather, false
recall and recognition rates were determined by
overall associative activation levels. Thus, asso-
ciative strength was the single best determinant of
false memory rates regardless of list and age.
Are there alternative explanations for our
findings? One alternative account, fuzzy trace
theory (FTT), suggests that false memories are
not a product of associative activation but of gist
extraction from semantically related material
(Brainerd & Reyna, 2005). Gist and the gist
extraction mechanism are not clearly defined
but globally it refers to a ‘‘theme’’ contained
within the presented material. In the DRM
paradigm, the gist is the theme of the list. In
addition to gists associated with words lists,
individual words can also have their own unique
meaning or local gist that can cause false mem-
ories (e.g., Reyna & Lloyd, 1997). For children,
false memories increase mainly because their
ability to extract the gist from information (e.g.,
individual words, lists) increases.
Our present findings, that true and false recall
increased with age and that true recall as well as
recognition was higher for categorical material,
also fit well with FTT. However, the finding that
 ASSOCIATIVE STRENGTH AND CHILDREN’S FALSE MEMORY
false memories were driven by the associative
strength between the list items and the critical
lure, BAS, and that this was independent of type of
association (i.e., categorical vs DRM), may pose
difficulties for FTT. Indeed, some have argued that
because words on categorised lists converge on a
single common theme (i.e., the category), such lists
should make it easier for participants to form or
extract a coherent gist (e.g., Gallo, 2006; Pierce,
Gallo, Weiss, & Schacter, 2005). Despite the
potential for stronger, more obvious, or more
coherent gist-based structures emerging from the
presentation of categorised materials, Pierce et al.
(2005; also see Buchanan, Brown, Cabeza, &
Maitson, 1999) found that false recognition was
higher for associative lists than for categorised
lists. Importantly, like the findings of Hutchison
and Balota (2005), these differences emerged
despite the fact that both associative and cate-
gorised lists produced similar levels of theme-
based memory on a meaning test. Of course these
findings are somewhat limited inasmuch as differ-
ent critical lures were used for the associative and
categorised lists. With this limitation removed in
the current study, we obtained the same results*
that is, consistent with AAT, associative strength
controlled levels of false memory whereas catego-
rical relations aided true memory.
Of course, it is not that FTT does not predict
false memories as a function of changes in BAS,
and it is always possible that BAS is simply an
index of gist: the higher the BAS to the critical lure,
the more likely it is that gist representations are
available for extraction (but see Gallo, 2006). Of
course, as already noted, associations can be
viewed as ‘‘gist rich’’, as they are a composite of
many different types of relationships (e.g., spatial
proximity, temporal contiguity, antonymy, syno-
nymy, taxonomy) such as in DRM lists, whereas
categorised lists converge on only a single theme
(i.e., the category). However, in terms of activating
the critical gist-extraction mechanism, something
that is needed to form false memories in FTT, it
could be argued that if a single theme was repeated
multiple times during list presentation (e.g., cate-
gorised lists), gist would be easier to extract than if
different themes were activated across the differ-
ent list items (e.g., associative lists).
That associative strength plays a major role in
false memory production is not new in the adult
literature (e.g., Gallo, 2006) and, according to
some, is the best-fitting model for adult false
memory production (e.g., Gallo, 2006; Hutchison
& Balota, 2005; Kimball et al., 2007). The current
13
experiment, combined with other recent research
with children (Howe, 2005, 2006, 2008a; Howe
et al., 2008, in press), is making it similarly
apparent in the developmental literature that
associative strength is the key variable driving
children’s false memory illusions. These and other
recent findings strongly suggest that age trends in
false memory illusions are related to increases in
the direct activation of associative links that may
already exist between concepts, rather than chil-
dren’s growing ability to connect gist across list
items. This is consistent with other findings
showing that (a) associative links between con-
cepts appear at a relatively young age, (b) they
are further strengthened and refined with in-
creases in both knowledge and experience, and
(c) both younger and older children rely on
associative (including thematic and categorical)
relations between concepts to guide the recollec-
tion process (Bjorklund, 2004). With develop-
ment, children gain more experience and
knowledge and their ability to automatically
activate and use associative relations to guide
recollection improves (Bjorklund, 2004; Howe
et al., 2008).
Evidence has been accumulating for some time
that many of the variables that govern encoding,
consolidation, storage, retention, and retrieval
processes in young children (and even infants)
are the same as those that regulate these memory
processes in older children and adults (e.g., Howe
et al., in press). What the current experiment adds
to this ever-expanding list is that the development
of both veridical and false memory can be viewed
as developmentally invariant phenomena, and
that the development of false memory in child-
hood can be subsumed under the same model as
that used to account for false recollection in
adulthood. That is, these age-invariant effects
suggest that a single theory should be able to
account for false memory and its development,
one that relies on associative-activation processes.
This model, the associative-activation theory,
suggests that developmental changes in veridical
recall and false memory illusions are driven by
increases in the number, type, and strength of
associative relations in children’s knowledge base
(Bjorklund, 2004) as well as the speed and
automaticity with which these associative rela-
tions are activated (Bjorklund, 2004; Howe, 2005,
2008b). Together, these developmental changes
lead to increased activation of studied and non-
studied but related information in memory, which
in turn increases both true and false recall rates
14 HOWE, WIMMER, BLEASE
across childhood and into adulthood. Because the
developmental mechanisms identified in this
theory are well established in a variety of other,
developmentally continuous phenomena in mem-
ory and cognition, there is no reason to suppose
that the associative-activation theory cannot also
account for the development of false memory
illusions.
Manuscript received 9 May 2008
Manuscript accepted 24 August 2008
First published online 24 November 2008
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16 HOWE, WIMMER, BLEASE

APPENDIX: ASSOCIATION VS CATEGORY LISTS

TBAS
total backward associative strength; MBAS
mean backward associative strength.

DRMcategory lists in BAS

APPLE NUMBER DRINK SLOW

Category Association Category Association Category Association Category Association

pear (.25) core (.30) ten (.12) math (.18) coke (.22) thirst (.28) fast (.60) snail (.49)
fruit (.22) pie (.23) two (.07) phone (.05) water (.17) eat (.15) sluggish (.34) turtle (.37)
banana (.15) red (.21) five (.03) amount (.03) milk (.10) swallow (.08) quick (.27) molasses (.17)
orange (.08) bite (.02) one (.05) letter (.02) soda (.08) liquid (.06) speed (.06) delay (.05)
peach (.06) seed (.02) eight (.03) address (.02) juice (.04) cup (.05) stopped (.00) traffic (.02)
TBAS 0.76 0.78 TBAS 0.32 0.30 TBAS 0.61 0.62 TBAS 1.27 1.10
MBAS 0.152 0.156 MBAS 0.064 0.060 MBAS 0.122 0.124 MBAS 0.254 0.220

DRMBcategory lists in BAS

BIRD THIEF CHAIR FISH

Category Association Category Association Category Association Category Association

bluejay (.74) nest (.68) crook (.46) steal (.09) table (.76) seat (.54) trout (.91) fin (.40)
canary (.69) wings (.48) robber (.36) rob (.07) stool (.32) sit (.18) cod (.58) scales (.29)
parrot (.63) feather (.36) burglar (.26) crime (.03) couch (.29) cushion (.09) bass (.32) catch (.16)
robin (.63) cage (.17) bandit (.17) gun (.00) desk (.29) arm (.03) shrimp (.21) tank (.12)
eagle (.49) fly (.02) criminal (.05) bad (.00) furniture (.18) wood (.01) shark (.14) sea (.03)
TBAS 3.18 1.71 TBAS 1.30 0.19 TBAS 1.84 0.85 TBAS 2.16 1.00
MBAS 0.636 0.342 MBAS 0.260 0.038 MBAS 0.368 0.170 MBAS 0.432 0.200

DRM
category lists in BAS

LION CLOTHES DOOR FLOWER

Category Association Category Association Category Association Category Association

tiger (.31) roar (.61) shirt (.06)

wardrobe window (.15) knob (.67) tulip (.78) petals (.75)
(.78) hall (.05) hinge (.63) daisy (.69) vase (.60)
animal (.02) tamer (.49) dress (.05) hangar (.52) wall (.05) key (.22) rose (.36) bloom (.59)
bear (.02) leo (.38) shorts (.03) wear (.51) room (.04) lock (.20) pansy (.11) stem (.43)
cub (.02) fierce (.11) pants (.03) fashion (.38) house (.00) handle (.07) lilac (.08) garden (.39)
cat (.00) jungle (.03) shoe (.00) cotton (.05) TBAS 0.29 1.79 TBAS 2.02 2.76
TBAS 0.37 1.62 TBAS 0.17 2.24 MBAS 0.058 0.358 MBAS 0.404 0.552
MBAS 0.074 0.324 MBAS 0.034 0.448