Hazel M. Leach and M. F. Washburn

“ When there is no effort to avoid, we have, first, the cases where a relevant stimulus word suggests a word that would not naturally occur to a person who had not seen the object. This may be called the most naïve type; it would be the natural method of self-betrayal if there were no effort to conceal. It proved to be rare in these experiments, and to be an uncertain indication. Only one correct judgment was based upon it, where the word 'red' suggested 'ink,' as it would not have been very likely to do unless the red ink bottle had been seen. ”

“ It is thus evident how uncertain are the inferences based on the character of the associations alone. Judging from these results, the most trustworthy evidence is furnished by a misunderstanding of the stimulus word in a way that would be practically impossible for a person with the object to which it referred in mind, as when 'write,' which referred to the ink bottle, was heard 'right' and suggested 'wrong;' and by the occurrence of associations based on the sound of the word. ”

“ There seems to be no a priori reason why undue emphasis on the sound of a word should always mean a desire to avoid associations connected with its meaning.
The best single criterion on which to base a decision as to the object seen by the observer in these experiments was the longest single reaction time. If, in each series, the longest reaction time was selected, and was found to be that of the reaction to a relevant word, this word proved in every case but two out of the fifty-three to refer to the object seen by the observer. ”