ABSTRACT
In psychology, process of conscious association of two or more aspects of the imagination. This simultaneous occurrence of several experiential units is triggered by specific associative rules such as temporal and spatial contiguity as well as similarity and contrast between the experienced content. Associations play a central role in the investigation and fostering of fantasy, thinking, memory, and in all learning processes. In psycholinguistics, associations (in connection with the neobehaviorist psychol-ogy) are defined as a connection between stimulus and response (or stimulus and reaction) and are used for language tests, especially to explain meaning ( stimulus-response). Here a distinction is drawn between immediate associations (strings of words that are triggered by a particular stimulus word) and mediating associations that are assumed to function as not directly observable mediators in stimulusresponse processes.
