METHODS OF STUDYING CONTROLLED WORD 

 ASSOCIATIONS 



MILDRED WEST LORING 

 From the Psychological Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University 



[The work reported here by Dr. Loring supplies the necessary ground 

 for a series of investigations in which it is proposed to use the asso- 

 ciation 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 

 is essential if working lists are to be selected in scientific way, avoiding 

 the associative sequences and preferences of the compiler. In accumula- 

 ting 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 compre- 

 hensive survey of the literature of the association reaction from Francis 

 Galton's in 1879 to authors of 1916, in which year the paper was com- 

 pleted. 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 ob- 

 served 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 



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PSYCHOBIOLOQY, VOL. I, NO. 6 



