Methods of studying controlled word associations.
Mildred West Loring · Psychobiology · 1918
The work reported here by Dr. Loring supplies the necessary ground for a series of investigations in which it is proposed to use the association method, and especially the method of controlled associative recall for the study of psychobiological problems.In addition to the data presented in this paper, Dr. Loring has accumulated a magazine of 10,888 words which have been selected on an experimental basis and classified, and from which future selections for any desired type of work, may be made with great efficiency.Such a comprehensive list iB essential if working lists are to be selected in scientific way, avoiding the associative sequences and preferences of the compiler.In accumulating and testing this list a labor of considerable magnitude has been performed, by methods which can scarcely be improved upon.The experimental work reported was done in the light of a comprehensive survey of the literature of the association reaction from Francis Galton's in 1879 to authors of 1916, in which year the paper was completed.The historical survey and word lists are omitted from present publication, but the bibliography is included.]Early in the history of the word association method it was observed that this method had distinct possibilities for practical application, especially in pathological fields, both because of its simplicity and because of its intrinsic diagnostic character.Very soon it began to be applied to the insane, the feeble-minded, and the delinquent with the hope that different types of association could be determined for each of these and their subgroups, and so provide one more aid to a critical diagnosis.The method was later used with great success in the detection of guilty knowledge.And with normal subjects there has been some study of the effect 369 PSTCHOBIOLOaT, VOL.I, HO. 6 % »IU.