STUDYING CONTROLLED WORD ASSOCIATIONS 



407 



TABLE B 



Number of cases following the rule for increase in reaction time directly with the 



number of syllables 



Table 9. Here are shown the results for the practise period. 

 The same conclusions hold here as for the regular period; the 

 reaction time for the noun-adjective association is longer than 

 for the adjective-noun association, and the reaction time for 

 both adjectives and nouns increases directly with the number 

 of syllables in the stimulus word. There are two exceptions 

 for adjectives, one for subject VII and one for subject X. It 

 will be observed that all the averages for subject X compared 

 with the others are relatively low. This was due to an actual 

 narrowness of vocabulary, which instead of hampering him 

 actually hastened his reaction. He was a university freshman 

 from a preparatory school where little attention was given to 

 English. As a result his reactions lay within a narrow range 

 and duplicates were common. This was true particularly for 

 the adjective responses to nouns. They were made up largely 

 of what Kent and Rosanoff call non-specific reactions, such as 

 large, small, good, bad, tall, short, etc. Few if any adjectives 

 were of more subtle or connotative significance. Nouns that were 

 reacted to by the other subjects with such adjectives as horrible, 

 ghastly or beautiful, wonderful got merely bad or good from this 

 subject for a response. Necessarily these stock adjectives oc- 

 curred many times in one list and allowed of a relatively short 

 reaction time. The noun responses were meager in their con- 



