An in-depth look into the co-occurence distribution of semantic associates
Sabine Schulte im Walde, Alissa Melinger · The Italian Journal of Linguistics · 2008
Semantic associations, namely words that are called to mind in response to a given stimulus, have been of interest to cognitive scientists for over a century. Over the years, they have come to represent a window into semantic knowledge, facilitating the development of empirically grounded models of semantic knowledge. Specifically, associations can be used as a tool to evaluate, estimate or describe the meanings of the respective stimuli. They have therefore been used to investigative the mechanisms underlying semantic memory, giving the researcher insights into the way semantic information is accessed and represented with the behavioural system.