A study of denotative similarity with restricted word associations

Abstract

Data for this study were collected in two parts. In the first, 70 Ss responded to a list of stimuli in seven tasks of restricted association. The second part of the study employed stimuli consisting of 11 of these original stimuli plus their primary responses in each of the seven tasks. These were given to 50 new Ss under the same seven task instructions. The seven tasks were Superordinates, Coordinates, Similars, Contrasts, Functions, Qualities, and Parts. The main analysis of data was the derivation of matrices of response overlap for the seven semantic relationships corresponding to the restricted-association tasks.Primary interest centered on similarity relationships. High overlap along the diagonal of the response-overlap matrix characterized the Similars. Overlap in five of these diagonal cells was found to discriminate Similars from the other relationships. A measure of the degree of Restricted-Association Similarity (RAS) was derived, based on this discriminating overlap.