scholarly journals Word Co-occurrence in Child-directed Speech Predicts Children's Free Word Associations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdellah Fourtassi
Keyword(s):  
Computational Linguistics ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
Free Association ◽  
Semantic Model ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Association Task ◽  
Associative Behavior ◽  
Free Word ◽  
Large Corpus

The free association task has been very influential both in cognitive science and in computational linguistics. However, little research has been done to study how free associations develop in childhood. The current work focuses on the developmental hypothesis according to which free word associations emerge by mirroring the co-occurrence distribution of children's linguistic environment. I trained a distributional semantic model on a large corpus of child language and I tested if it could predict children's responses. The results largely supported the hypothesis: Co-occurrence-based similarity was a strong predictor of children's associative behavior even controlling for other possible predictors such as phonological similarity, word frequency, and word length. I discuss the findings in the light of theories of conceptual development.

Do word associations assess word knowledge? A comparison of L1 and L2, child and adult word associations

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjolein Cremer ◽  
Daphne Dingshoff ◽  
Meike de Beer ◽  
Rob Schoonen
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Word Knowledge ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Association Behavior ◽  
Log Linear ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Free Word

Differences in word associations between monolingual and bilingual speakers of Dutch can reflect differences in how well seemingly familiar words are known. In this (exploratory) study mono-and bilingual, child and adult free word associations were compared. Responses of children and of monolingual speakers were found to be more dispersed across response categories than responses of adults and of L2 speakers, respectively. Log linear analyses show that the distributional patterns of association responses differ among the groups. Age has the largest effect on association responses. Adults give more meaning-related responses than children. Child L1 speakers give more meaning-related responses than child L2 speakers. Form-based and ‘Other’ associations were mostly given by (L2) children. The different findings for mono- and bilingual children and for mono- and bilingual adults show the influence of bilingualism on the development of word associations. The prominent effect of age emphasizes the role of conceptual development in word association behavior, and makes free word association tasks less suitable as an assessment tool for word knowledge.

scholarly journals COMPLEX STRUCTURES AND SEMANTICS IN FREE WORD ASSOCIATION

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (03n04) ◽  
pp. 1250054 ◽  
Author(s):  
PIETRO GRAVINO ◽  
VITO D. P. SERVEDIO ◽  
ALAIN BARRAT ◽  
VITTORIO LORETO
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Semantic Network ◽  
Free Association ◽  
Small World ◽  
South Florida ◽  
Characteristic Scale ◽  
Property A ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Free Word

We investigate the directed and weighted complex network of free word associations in which players write a word in response to another word given as input. We analyze in details two large datasets resulting from two very different experiments: On the one hand the massive multiplayer web-based Word Association Game known as Human Brain Cloud, and on the other hand the South Florida Free Association Norms experiment. In both cases, the networks of associations exhibit quite robust properties like the small world property, a slight assortativity and a strong asymmetry between in-degree and out-degree distributions. A particularly interesting result concerns the existence of a characteristic scale for the word association process, arguably related to specific conceptual contexts for each word. After mapping, the Human Brain Cloud network onto the WordNet semantics network, we point out the basic cognitive mechanisms underlying word associations when they are represented as paths in an underlying semantic network. We derive in particular an expression describing the growth of the HBC graph and we highlight the existence of a characteristic scale for the word association process.

scholarly journals Students’ Word Associations with Different Terms Related to the Wadden Sea: Does the Place of Residence (Coast or Inland) Have an Influence?

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 284
Author(s):  
Till Schmäing ◽  
Norbert Grotjohann
Keyword(s):  
Wadden Sea ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Place Of Residence ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Quantitative Content ◽  
Visitation Frequency ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Free Word ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Out Of School

This paper presents students’ word associations with terms regarding the Wadden Sea. A continuous free word-association method was used in which the students from secondary schools (n = 3119, average age: 13.54 years) reported their associations with the stimulus words Wadden Sea, mudflat hiking tour, and tides in written form. Data were collected from students living close to the Wadden Sea and from students living inland. We performed a quantitative content analysis including the corresponding formation of categories. In addition, students’ school, out-of-school with the class, and private experiences the Wadden Sea ecosystem were recorded. The study shows that not only subject-related concepts should be considered at different levels, but non-subject-related aspects as well. The associations of the inland and non-inland students are statistically significantly different. The Wadden Sea and its biome were found to be completely unknown to some students. Students’ school, out-of-school with the class, and private experiences of the wetlands are also very mixed, regarding their Wadden Sea visitation frequency, and surprisingly cannot be directly derived from their place of residence. This research makes an important contribution towards the design of future biology didactic studies on the Wadden Sea.

Attitudes, Cognitive Structures and Emotional Reactivity to Sex and Security: Sex Differences

1974 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 715-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard S. Cimbalo ◽  
Paulette A. Anzelone ◽  
Patricia A. Ryan ◽  
Marianne P. Younkers
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Physiological Response ◽  
Emotional Reactivity ◽  
Free Association ◽  
Cognitive Structures ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Association Task

An attempt was made to determine if sex differences existed for attitudes, cognitive structures, and emotional reactivity for concepts of sex and security and for stimuli. It was hypothesized that for males, the concept of sex and/or sexual stimuli will be ranked higher, elicit a stronger physiological response, elicit a greater number of responses in a free-association task, and be more prevalent in compositions written about love, and that for females, the concept of security and/or security stimuli will be greater on the above measures. The data (with the exception of the paragraph written about love) were interpreted as supporting the sex differences along the sex and security dimensions.

scholarly journals Free word associations of children and adults

1966 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-58
Author(s):  
Joan Wertheim ◽  
P. James Geiwitz
Keyword(s):  
Word Associations ◽  
Free Word

Testing the Revised Hierarchical Model: Evidence from word associations

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
JON CLENTON
Keyword(s):  
Hierarchical Model ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Relative Strength ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
L2 Proficiency ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Response Behaviour ◽  
Association Task ◽  
Association Response ◽  
Model Evidence

The main purpose of the work described in this paper is to examine the extent to which the L2 developmental changes predicted by Kroll and Stewart's (1994) Revised Hierarchical Model (RHM) can be understood by word association response behaviour. The RHM attempts to account for the relative “strength of the links between words and concepts in each of the bilingual's languages” (Kroll, Van Hell, Tokowicz & Green, 2010, p. 373). It proposes that bilinguals with higher L2 proficiency tend to rely less on mediation, while less proficient L2 learners tend to rely on mediation and access L2 words by translating from L1 equivalents. In this paper, I present findings from a simple word association task. More proficient learners provided a greater proportion of collocational links, suggesting that they mediate less when compared to less proficient learners. The results provide tentative support for Kroll and Stewart's model.

Differentiating Views of Inheritance: The Free Association Task as a Method to Assess Social Representations of Wealth, Inherit, and Bequeath

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Stark ◽  
Christoph Kogler ◽  
Helmut Gaisbauer ◽  
Clemens Sedmak ◽  
Erich Kirchler
Keyword(s):  
Social Representations ◽  
Free Association ◽  
Association Task

Relative Influence of Linguistic versus Cultural Factors on Free Verbal Associations

1968 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorand B. Szalay ◽  
Charles Windle
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Relative Influence ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Free Word

The extent to which differences in word associations between cultural groups are due to linguistic factors or to word meanings and values determined by culture was examined in the continued free word associations of Koreans in Korean and in English and a U. S. group in English. The influence of cultural background was at least as much as that of language on each of three characteristics examined. Further, much of the difference due to language seems to stem from the milieu of language acquisition.

Relationship between Two Measures of Verbal Relatedness: Preliminary Report

1965 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-18
Author(s):  
Bertram Garskof ◽  
George R. Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Preliminary Report ◽  
Word Associations ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Direct Association ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Correction For Attenuation ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
Single Response ◽  
Free Word

Two measures of associative overlap between word pairs, the Mutual Relatedness Index (MR) and the Relatedness Coefficient (RC), computed from group single response free word associations and continued word associations from individual Ss, respectively, were computed from norms obtained from the same Ss for two samples of word pairs. The correlation between MR and RC for the two samples, was .540 and .504. With correction for attenuation, the correlation between MR and RC is .76. MR was highly correlated with direct association ( r = .88) while RC was not ( r = .43). It is tenable that MR and RC do not reflect the same aspects of verbal relatedness even though they are both considered measures of the associative overlap between a pair of words.

scholarly journals Representations of Research among Newly Graduated Paramedical Professionals: A Qualitative Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (21) ◽  
pp. 11331
Author(s):  
Evelyne Decullier ◽  
Mathilde Chauliaguet ◽  
Arnaud Siméone ◽  
Julie Haesebaert ◽  
Agnès Witko
Keyword(s):  
Speech Therapy ◽  
Research Collaboration ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Association Task ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Training Institutions ◽  
Free Word

Despite a keen interest in clinical research, most paramedical professionals are unwilling to play an active role. Our objective was to explore paramedical professionals’ representations of research. Using an existing database of final year paramedical students (speech therapy, occupational therapy, psychomotricity, audiometry, physiotherapy, orthoptics), we deployed a qualitative approach composed of two successive steps: (1) a free word association task, and (2) semi-structured individual interviews. Out of the 54 students who agreed to be contacted, we received 21 responses to the free word association questionnaire, and 11 interviews were conducted. The hierarchical evocation matrix revealed that the scientific representation of research is based on words defining the research and the purpose of the research. “Collaboration” was identified as being an essential part of the research process. The central core of the representation is coherent with all its components perceived as positive. The content analysis of the interviews showed a polarization around two key points: (1) participants are interested in accessing and using evidence in their practice (2) but feel less confident about and/or motivated to generate evidence themselves. This study highlights the need to develop more research-friendly environments, especially in training institutions.

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