A set of word triads are presented that, as stimulus materials for free association, permit the assessment of the relative salience of two varieties of feature enhancement. There are 10 triads of each of four types that differ with respect to how the words of each triad are related. In the first type, the three words share inherent features that determine their membership in a common natural category, words of a second type are from different categories but share a sensory characteristic, the third type share both membership in a natural category and a sensory feature, and the fourth type are unrelated. The distributions of responses to these triad types are presented for a college sample as a baseline for a population of high linguistic ability. Changes in such distributions from 1st to 5th grade are then explored, and differences are shown in the associations produced by 10th- and 11th-grade high school students of high, medium, and low reading levels.
Participants were presented with word triads and asked to provide free association responses.