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HOW TO PLAY


Once an original word has been chosen, usually randomly or arbitrarily, a player will find a word that they associate with it and make it known to all the players, usually by saying it aloud or writing in down as the next item on a list of words so far used. The next player must then do the same with this previous word. This continues in turns for any length of time, but often word limits are set, so that the game is agreed to end after, for instance, 400 words.

Usually, players write down the next word by merely using the first word that comes to their mind after they hear the previous one. Sometimes however they may put in more thought to find a more Creative Connection between the words. Exchanges are often fast and sometimes unpredictable (though Logic al Patterns can usually be found without difficulty). Sometimes, a lot of the game's fun can arise from the seemingly strange or amusing associations that people make between words.

The game can be played actively or passively, sometimes taking many weeks to complete, and can in fact be played with any number of players, even one.


Variants


In some games, extra limitations are added, for instance:

  • The associations between words must be strictly obvious, rather than the usual "first word that comes to mind", which can often require explaining to see how it is connected with the previous word.

  • Word Disassociation (sometimes called ''Dissociation'') is sometimes played. In this game, the aim is to say a word that is as unrelated as possible to the previous one. In such games, however, it is often found that Creativity is lowered and the words stray towards having obvious associations again. There is a song about Word Disassociation by Neil Cicierega (Lemon Demon) on his Damn Skippy album. This game is sometimes known as " Word For Word ".

  • Sometimes, repeated words are forbidden or otherwise noted on a separate list for interest.

  • A variant with an arbitrary name (sometimes called Ultra Word Association) involves associating words in a Grid , where the first word in placed in the top-left, and where each word must be placed adjacent to another one and must associate with all those words adjacent to it.


A game based on the Word Association game which is sometimes popular for informal social gatherings is '' Bobsledding ''.


EXAMPLE


Here is an example of how a Word Association game might run:
Dog,

Cat,

Fur,

Coat,

Enshroud,

Night,

Eye,

Heart,

Love,

Hate,

...



PSYCHOLOGY


It is believed by some that this game can reveal something of a person's Subconscious mind (as it shows what things they associate together), however some are sceptical of how effective such a technique could be in psychology. However, more often than not, most of the fun of the game comes from observing the erratic links between words, where the amusement comes from wondering how someone else's mind managed to make such an association.

Often, the game's goal is to compare the first and final word, to see if they relate, or to see how different they are, or also to see how many words are repeated. Likewise, players often review the list of words to see the pathways of associations that go from beginning to end.

Certain popular psychologists like Derren Brown have shown an ability to predict people's word associations, and some suggest that humans actually find it very difficult to ''disassociate'' words such that they become more predictable when told to do so. For instance, the aforementioned Derren Brown once predicted every word in a sequence of "disassociated" words made by a professional psychologist (with one failing). Notably, the man disassociated the word "school" with "tie", where the actual ''association'' is quite clear.

Despite these observations, most psychological thought about word association is Folk Psychology .


SEE ALSO