WORD ASSOCIATION RESPONSES OF JAPANESE AND AMERICANS
COMPARED WITH MORAN AND THE S-P SHIFT
JUDY YONEOKA
ABSTRACT
A study was made of associative responses of 3-5-year-old and
8-10-year-old Japanese and American children as well as of adults to a list of 30
stimulus words, composed of 10 nouns, 10 verbs and 10 adjectives. Responses
were classified according to grammatical form class and to a four-category
system developed by Moran (1973). It was found that response mechanisms in
Japanese and American adults differed radically, in that over 60% of American
adult responses were paradigmatic (same form class as the stimulus word), and
47 % fell into Moran's logical category, whereas only 22.2 % of adult Japanese
responded paradigmatically, and less than 5 % give logical category responses.
Comparison data for various ages showed that 8-12-year-old response patterns
were basically similar to those of the adults (with one exception), but that
3-5-year-old children of both cultures showed at least 66% syntagmatic
(different form class) responses, resembling each other but differing greatly
from the response patterns of their elders. Additionally, Japanese speakers of
English in three classes of ability were tested in English. Intermediate and
advanced speakers had essentially the same response patterns as the Japanese
adults tested in Japanese. Conversely, expert speakers showed approximately
the same overall percentage of paradigmatic responses as the American adults,
although their use of logical responses was somewhat lower.
INTRODUCTION
In the 1960's, a great deal of literature appeared documenting a theory
called the "syntagmatic-paradigmatic shift" (or "syntactic paradigmatic shift",
hereafter referred to as S-P shift)1 in free-association tests. This S-P shift
refers to a cognitive phenomenon occurring somewhere between 6 and 8 years
of age. At this time, paradigmatic responses, or responses belonging to the
same grammatical form class as the stimulus word (e.g. soft-hard, foot-shoe)
replace syntagmatic responses, which belong to a form class other than that of
the stimulus word (e. g. soft-blanket, foot-walk), as the most popular type of
response in a word association test. Although this shift has been
well-documented only for American studies, analysis of research of English,
French, German and Italian primary responses shows that the tendency
towards paradigmatic responses exists at least for French and German adults
as well (See Table 1).2
However, according to a separate study done by Moran (1973),
Japanese and Western adults show greatly differing word association response
pat-terns. Moran found that Japanese and American children had identical
response patterns, giving mostly enactive (usually verb-noun pairs) responses.
However, adult responses differed in that Japanese preferred iconic (usually
adj.-noun pairs) answers and Americans tended towards logical answers (same
class with a categorical relation).
Comparing Moran's work with the S-P shift theory, a contradiction
appears. The American results from Moran's work are in accordance with the
S-P shift theory, as the enactive responses preferred by children are
syntagmatic (different form class) and the logical (adult) responses are
paradigmatic (same form class). However, judging from Moran's findings, the
S-P shift did not take place in Japanese responses, as the popular Japanese
adult response category (iconic) is syntagmatic, not paradigmatic. In this study,
a similar word-association test was administered to several
Table 1. Comparison of syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic primary responses in
English, French, German, Italian and Japanese.
SYNTAGMATIC
(Total)
End.
Ic.
PARADIGMATIC
Total
Fun.
Log.
Total
English(15)
0
0
0
4
11
15
French(15)
1
0
1
4
10
14
German(15)
0
0
0
4
11
15
Italian(15)
6
0
6
2
7
9
Data from table of primary responses in Rosenzweig (1961) to 10 nouns, 5
adjectives.
English(100)
2
9
11
89
French(100)
1
11
12
88
German(100)
5
6
11
89
Data from table of primary responses in Russell and Meseck (1959) to 71 nouns,
29 adjectives.
English(14)
1
1
2
3
9
12
Japanese(14)
7
1
8
6
0
6
Data from primary responses of present study to 9 nouns, 5 adjectives.
※Data from a separate study by Ervin and Landar (1961) on Navaho
word associations may also be used for comparison. The total
para-digmatic response rates per form class for Navaho adults were N
-59% , A - 42%. V - 52%, which are basically comparable to the N 75.6%, A-57.8%. V-48.9% obtained in this study for American adults.
Although the N-values are similar, the other values contrast
dramatically with the N-55.6%, A-7.3%, V-4.4% obtained for Japanese
adults in the present study.
groups of subjects. Results were analyzed for consistency with both the S-P
shift and Moran's findings, in an attempt to verify the lack of S-P shift in
Japanese and discover possible explanations for it's cause.
METHOD
A list of 30 words was administered to some 170 subjects classified into
one of the following 9 categories :
1. American 3-5-year-olds.
2. American 8-12-year-olds.
3. American adults (over 17).
4. Japanese 3-5year-olds.
5. Japanese 8-12-year-olds.
6. Japanese adults (over 17).
7. Japanese intermediate speakers of English.
8. Japanese advanced speakers of English.
9. Japanese expert speakers of English.
Groups 4-6 were tested in Japanese; all others were tested in English. Subjects
for all groups were a mixture of sex and (in case of the adults) working status,
with the exception of Japanese intermediate and expert English speakers. (The
former were all female - mainly housewives, and the latter were all male
university professors of English.) The stimulus word list consisted of 10 nouns,
10 verbs and 10 adjectives (see App. I for stimulus words and primary adult
responses), and was administered orally with instructions to elicit “the first
response that comes to your mind". All subjects except for 3-5-year-olds were
tested in groups and gave their responses in writing. Due to their young age,
the 3-5-year-olds were tested individually and their oral responses were
recorded by the interviewer.3
ANALYSIS
Analysis was performed on a data sample composed of five responses
per subject group for each stimulus word, taken in such a way that
unclassifiable and blank responses were avoided as much as possible. Three
stimulus words, one in each grammatical form class, were disregarded due to
various reasons (see Appendix). Therefore a total of 5 responses for 9 words in
each form class category, or 45 responses x 3 form class categories=135
responses overall per subject group were used. The data was first categorized
according to Moran's 4-category system as follows:
(1) iconic, or quality-oriented (usually adj-noun, noun adj-pairs), such
as apple-red,
(2) enactive, or action-oriented (usually noun-verb,verb-noun pairs),
such as apple-eat,
(3) functional (typically responses of the same form class with a
functional relation) such as apple-tree, and
(4) logical (synonyms, antonyms, super-, sub- and co-ordinates), such
as apple-orange or apple-fruit.4
The same data was then reanalyzed as syntagmatic or paradigmatic, and the
percentages of each type were calculated. Syntagmatic response percent-ages
were calculated from iconic and enactive class data, and paradigmatic
responses from functional and logical class data.
DISCUSSION
Results of Present Data vs. the S-P Shift
As can be seen from Table 2, there is a shift in American responses
from 66.7% syntagmatic in 3-5-year-olds to 60.7% paradigmatic in adults,
which is in full accordance with the S-P shift theory. Also, the American adult
paradigmatic response rates according to grammatical form class (75% for
nouns, 57% for adjectives and 49% for verbs) are in agreement with the
findings of Fillenbaum (1965), in whose report the paradigmatic response
Table 2. Percentages of syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic responses for each
subject category according to form class of stimulus word.
percentages were 79% for nouns, 65% for adjectives and 43% for verbs. As
expected, the Japanese responses did not show a general S-P shift. In fact, this
type of shift was present only in adult responses to nouns (55% paradigmatic).
For verbs and adjectives, the responses remained syntagmatic throughout all
age groups. It is interesting to note the slight trend towards P responses for
verbs and adjectives (but NOT for nouns) in 8-12-year-old Japanese; however,
this disappeared again in the adults. The total Japanese paradigmatic
response percentage increased only slightly (+ 15.5%) with age.
Japanese people tested in the English language showed a greater
tendency towards P responses for nouns than those tested in Japanese. In fact,
the P-response percentage for nouns is equivalent to or exceeds that of the
native speakers, even for those students of only intermediate ability.5 As with
the native language Japanese responses, however, no paradigmatic tendency
was evident for verb and adjective responses in lower-ability subjects. The
expert class, though, did show a tendency towards adjectival and verbal
P-responses, as well as an overall paradigmatic response percentage rate which
was equivalent to that of the American adults, seemingly indicating that they
were learning to “think" with American response patterns. We will see that the
Moran types for these paradigmatic responses are somewhat different,
however.
Results of Present Data vs. Moran's Findings
The results of classification of the present data as iconic, enactive,
function-al or logical according to Moran's 4-category system can be seen in
Table 3. We see here that, in accordance with Moran's findings, 3-5-year-olds of
both cultures show a preference for enactive responses, differing in this respect
from their elders. Indeed it is interesting to note that the totals for all response
categories in the 3-5-year-old,'groups were quite similar, except
Also in agreement with Moran's results and reflective of the
paradigmatic shift in American adults is their overwhelming tendency to use
logical responses. This turns out to be the dominant response category for
American older children and adults irregardless of the form class of the
stimulus word.
There is one area in which, the present results do not agree with those
of Moran, and that is in the lack of, an overwhelming preference-over 70% as
reported by Moran-by Japanese adults towards iconic responses. Although the
dominant response category for Japanese adults was iconic, the response rate
was less than 41%, and it was "overwhelmingly" present only in the case of an
adjectival stimulus word. The Japanese adult response rate for nouns was
predominantly functional, meaning that the, overall iconic response .rate ,was
due . mainly to responses, to adjectives.6 However. a preference for iconic
responses to nouns is present in Japanese 8-12*year-olds. This will be
discussed further below.
Base Pattern and Deviant N-Patterns
Upon closer observation of the results, we find a common bond
between all t (primary , or secondary) responses to adjectives (= groups in the
dominant (primary iconic) and verbs (=enactive), and all adult groups
predominantly gave functional responses to nouns as well. From a grammatical
standpoint, this would mean all noun responses, independent of the form class
of the stimulus word. Although older American primary responses for all form
classes
Table 3. Comparison of responses using Moran 4-category system.
were in the logical category, their secondary responses showed this same
pattern of N-functional, A-iconic, V-enactive. Thus, it may be possible that this
response style represents a sort of base pattern, which could be present
universally.7 The only deviant form class was N, and it is worthwhile to take a
closer look at the two deviant N-patterns found in the table.
The first deviant N-pattern was present in both Japanese and
American 3-5-year-old groups and favored enactive responses to nouns over the
functional base pattern responses. This has already been shown to be in
accordance with Moran's data, and is predictable from the S-P shift, since
syntagmatic (i.e. enactive and iconic) responses should be predominant in this
group. As with the adult patterns, the question arises as to whether this
response style could be universal for small children. A similar test was
conducted by Moran (1974) using Chinese children as subjects, and these were
found to have the same enactive response style as in the present experiment.8
The other deviant N-pattern, present in the Japanese 8-12-year-olds, was
mentioned briefly earlier. This is the iconic response pattern for nouns which
was dominant in Moran's data for Japanese adults.9 The responses of this
group actually show a tendancy away from the pattern of the adult group-not
only in the deviant N-pattern but also in the relatively large numbers of
functional or logical responses to adjectives and functional or enactive
responses to verbs. There is no clear-cut explanation for the appearance of this
response style in this age group, and no emergence of any comparable pattern
in the data of the American children.
Spontaneity response mechanism
Another interesting observation from Table 3 is the much more
frequent usage of echo answers by all American groups as compared with
Japanese. This suggests the possibility of a more “spontaneous" response
mechanism in Americans. It could well be that this “spontaneity" mechanism
also accounts in part for the shift towards logical responses in older children
and adults, allowing the possibility of repeating, without thinking, what was
learned in school days, i.e. synonyms, antonyms, classifications, etc.
Striking evidence for this possibility comes from the study of Harry W.
Crane (1915) regarding reaction time. In that study, 30 American subjects were
asked to undergo a word-association experiment under stressful conditions; i.e.
they were informed that they could be required to justify their responses or
response interval at any time. In addition, some of the participants were
requested to deliberately avoid disclosing certain information in their
responses. Under these circumstances, it is understandable that responses
would tend to be less spontaneous and more <"guarded" than usual. The
results show a marked preference for the basic response pattern (i.e. the
Japanese pattern) in 22 subjects. Only 4 subjects showed the normal American
logical response patterns, while the remaining 4 showed a mixture of the two.
CONCLUSIONS
We see from the present data that, as suspected, the S-P shift as
document-ed in previous literature does not occur in Japanese cognitive
development, except to some extent for nouns. Even in this case, however, the
trend is more toward functional responses than the logical responses preferred
by Americans. This is basically true irregardless of the test language, although
expert speakers of English show a tendency towards paradigmatic responses.
Two questions arise from these results. First of all, even though small
children of both cultures show the same cognitive patterns, these patterns
became markedly different in the respective adult subjects. Why should this
happen? The answer to this question could lie in any of (or in a combination of)
many possible fields of study. A possibility of learned spontaniety as a factor
has already been suggested. Cultural and/or educational differences could
provide a plausible surface explanation for the difference in response patterns
(i.e. Eastern people are taught to think and respond to life emotionally,
whereas Westerners value logic and reason more highly). However, more
consideration would have to be given here in light of the large number of
syntagmatic responses made by Italians (mentioned in the introduction of this
report and in Table 1) and for the likelihood (based on hearsay through
informants of that language) that Korean responses would be similar to
American ones, although both the Korean language and culture have strong
similarities and connections with Japanese.
The second question arises concerning the possibility of a "basic
response pattern" of N-functional, A-iconic, V-enactive for adults, and of
N-enactive, A-iconic, V-enactive for young children. Although further study is
needed, it seems rather safe to conclude that the childrens' enactive response
style to nouns is to some extent universal. Could it be that the adult pattern is
also universal and is foreshadowed by the - possibly more spontaneous - logical
response in some cultural or linguistic groups? If so, why should this
foreshadowing occur? This is a possibility which would require further
experimentation to answer satisfactorily.
NOTES
1.
The
distinction
between
syntagmatic-paradigmatic
(also
called
"heterogenous-homogenous") and syntactic-paradigmatic has
been
discussed widely (McNeill, 1963; Entwisle, 1964). It will suffice to say
that since most comparable studies have been analyzed using the
simpler heterogenous-homogenous distinction (based on form class only),
the same distinction has been used in the present study.
2.
The similarity between the low rate for paradigmatic primary responses
(40-60% vs. 86-100% in other languages) and the wide use of enactive
responses in both Italian and Japanese in Table I is interesting and
merits confirmatory study and analysis.
3.
Much attention has been given to the possibility of differences in
response due to method of administration (oral or written). Palermo
(1963) found a higher degree of paradigmatic responses associated with
the oral response procedure in the case of 5th graders, which would
indicate that the S-P shift would be even more pronounced if an oral
procedure were used for all ages across the board. According to other
studies (Entwisle and Forsyth, 1963; Entwisle. 1966) there seems to be
no major effect.
4.
A fifth <'echo" response group was included in this study for a type of
response typical of 3-5-year-olds in which gestures, motions, sounds, and
nonsense-or rhyming-words (such as apple-papple) were used. This
<<echo" group is similar to the <'clang" response category used by Ervin
(1961),
who
found
that
this
category
was
widely
used
by
kindergarten-age children, but decreased rapidly with age.
5.
This tendency does not reflect a true correlation with the cognitive
process in English, as the Moran-classification type for these P responses
is mostly functional, not logical as in the case of the American responses.
6.
The stimulus words used by Moran were not balanced between form
classes, consisting of 68.2% nouns, 21.2% adjectives and only 10.6%
verbs. Judging from the different values obtained for responses
according to form class, this factor could have had a significant effect on
the data.
7.
Indeed, since there is a general tendency to use nouns more than other
form classes overall in responding, it is common sense that most
responses to verbs would be enactive (V-N pairs), to adjectives, iconic
(A-N pairs), and to nouns, logical or functional (N-N pairs).
8.
It is regrettable that in that study adults were not tested as well, as it
would have been quite informative to know what type of response
pattern was dominant in Chinese adults.
9.
Moran himself suggests that the response patterns of older children and
adults are roughly equivalent, leading us to question the average age of
his “adult" subjects, which is not made completely clear in that study.
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