The University of South Florida (USF) Word Association, Rhyme, and Word Fragment Norms is a dataset compiled to study word relationships and cognitive processes in language. This database provides norms for word associations, rhyming patterns, and word fragment completion, making it a valuable resource for psycholinguistic research.

The database provides:

1. Word Association Norms

• Based on free word association tasks where participants were given a stimulus word and asked to provide the first word that came to mind.

• Provides forward associations (from cue to response) and backward associations (from response to cue), measuring how strongly words are linked in human cognition.

• Example: The stimulus “dog” might elicit responses like “cat” or “bark.”

• Contains approximately 5,000 stimulus words.

• Each word was presented to multiple participants (often 100+), resulting in over 72,000 unique word associations.

2. Rhyme Norms

• Includes lists of words that participants judge as rhyming with a given stimulus.

• Helps in phonological processing research and understanding how sound similarities influence memory and retrieval.

• Example: The word “hat” might elicit rhyming words like “bat” or “mat.”

3. Word Fragment Completion Norms

• Participants were given partial word fragments and asked to complete them.

• Used to study lexical access and retrieval processes.

• Example: Given “_ouse,” common completions might be “house” or “mouse.”

Relevance to Lexical Sophistication

The norms are a relevant measure Lexical Sophistication because they capture contextual distinctiveness, which assesses how diversely a word is used in different contexts .

Nelson, D. L., McEvoy, C. L., & Schreiber, T. A. (1998). The University of South Florida word association, rhyme, and word fragment norms. http://www.usf.edu/FreeAssociation/.