Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Psychological Review, Vol. 18: January, 1911
Strictly speaking, not all, nor perhaps the greater number of responses in the experiment can be designated as 'free' associations. There is very apt to be more or less forced sup pression, rselection. The time required to cm 057366761} adequate associations ls often considerably shorter than the actual response time. The simpler controlled associa tions, such as the opposites, are uniformly shorter than the uncontrolled. It requires distinctly less time to give the oppo site of slow than to give the first thing it makes you think of. In the latter case, while the word may arouse no associations of special affective moment, there is yet likely to be some striving for the mastery among the various associations that do present themselves, with no deciding factor as in the Oppo sites test. It is seen here how completely the association test fails as a measure of the speed of the thought processes, since it is inconceivable that a particular class of associations should, on an average, be faster in arousal than any association. In the free association test, any response in language may satisfy the conditions of the experiment. In the controlled association tests, usually but few responses are so capable. In the first case, the subject may make any response that he pleases; in the second, only a particular response. Thus, while giving thlreedom of choice over the whole range of language, the test also imposes a responsibility of choice. In the controlled association test this freedom, and consequently the difficulty of choice, is reduced to a minimum. Here the response is chosen for us, and we have only to find it. In free association we have not only to find a suitable response, but also to choose it, and consent to it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.