The Diagnostic Utility of Kent-Rosanoff Word Association Test In relation to Response Entropy

Abstract

Kent-Rosanoff word association test was administered and scored for: one index of response entropy and seven categories of emotional indicators for each of the 100 stimulus words (N=250). The inference suggests that the diagnostic utility of Kent-Rosanoff word association test should be viewed with due regard to the relationship of emotional indicators and response entropy. Therefore, to validate the findings, a homogenous list of 68 stimulus words of average response entropy of Kent-Rosanoff word association test were selected and administered to psychiatrically diagnosed 8 paranoid schizophrenics, 10 non-paranoid schizophrenics, 10 non-psychotic psychiatric patients and 250 normal. Results reveal strong justification for the clinicians to use the joint occurrence of emotional indicators ‘unique response-long reaction time-response repetition’ and ‘unique response-long reaction time-misremembering’ for tapping a common factor associated with the willingness to be unconventional. The ‘diagnostic potential’ of the list of 68 homogeneous stimulus words has been confirmed to a great extent.