Automatic and selective processes in the word associations of brain-damaged and normal subjects.

ASSOCIATION tests; BRAIN-damaged children; PSYCHOLOGICAL tests; MEMORY; PATIENTS; RECOLLECTION (Psychology)

The unimpaired recall of associations in a word-association test of a brain-damaged person seemed inconsistent with the impaired memory function characteristic of the majority of brain-damaged patients. The Automatic Process refers to the "springing to mind" of various response possibilities. In the word-association situation, where the set is for word responses, these possibilities are words. Some responses are more likely to occur than others, so that it is possible to think of an array of potential responses, ranging from most probable to least probable. This research grew out of an attempt to explain a brain-damaged experiment's good performance on the reproduction part of the word-association test, which seemed on the face of it inconsistent with the impaired memory function characteristic of the majority of brain-damaged experiments. With reference to a model of the word-association process, these aspects were conceptualized as being related to an Automatic Process and a Selective Process, respectively.