Word association task responses prime associations in subsequent trials

Abstract

The word association task has been used extensively in psychological and linguistic research as a way of measuring connections between words in the mental lexicon. Interpretation of word association data has assumed that responses represent the strongest association between cue word and response, but there is evidence that participant behaviour can be affected by task instructions and design. This study investigated whether word association responses can be primed by the participants’ own response to the preceding cue—that is, whether the order in which cues are presented alters the responses that are generated. Results showed that the proportion of participants who provide a particular association (e.g., acid—RAIN) is greater when their response to the previous cue in the list is also associated with rain (e.g., parasol—UMBRELLA). The same is not true when the two cues are presented non-consecutively. Word association tasks should be administered such that the order in which cues are presented is random for every participant so as to avoid unintentional contamination of associative strength data.