Examples of Associations

Let’s take, for instance, the word "lemon". What associations do recall this word in your mind? Think a little.

And now, let me guess your thoughts. You think about peel, orange, juice, water, rind, sour, sugar, yellow, glass, slice, squeeze, fresh, green, fruit, fragrant, tea, pulp, citrus. Suppose I was not able to guess all your answers (I'm not a miracle worker, I am sill learning), even if I was lucky enough to name only a couple - it already shows that associations do exist, they are not a fiction, but reality. The fact that I was not able to guess all your answers, merely says that for each person a set of associations related to the same word or concept, is individual. Nevertheless, within a particular social group the same words evoke almost the same set of word associations. Now we are talking only about word associations. But many of you visually imagined a juicy pulp of the yellow lemon, neatly cut into segments. And someone could feel astringent and sour taste of this citrus fruit, notice increased salivation in his mouth.

Many of us, while learning at the school, or perhaps at the university, studied a foreign language. One important element of learning any foreign language is memorizing words. The formula for this task is quite simple: it is necessary for a particular word in their native language to name the corresponding word in a foreign language and vice versa. How do people remember these words? For the trainee himself it is usually difficult to answer this question: the proper word comes to mind naturally. But what if the right word is not recalled or term is not remembered? Then, simply repeat the process of learning, naming the words in a pair one after another! The mechanism of human memory is based on associations.

The Role of Associations in Advertising

Long time ago the advertising industry has made use of word associations.

In fact, advertising is creation of a stable set of associations for certain group of people. What do advertisers want? They want to force a man who thinks about something, about his needs, when he remembering, seeing, or hearing something close and familiar, they want him to think immediately of something else - about an advertised product. And advertising associations should be awaken for viewers and listeners only on certain keywords.

For example, imagine that you need to wash your clothes. What will you think about at first? You have to wash, and you need water and washing powder… laundry detergent ... Ariel, Clorox, Dreft, Omo, Persil, Purex, Tide and Surf. These words come to your mind regardless of you thoughts. You didn’t try to remember them specially, you didn’t ask about them the seller in the store, yet didn’t ask your friends, but you already know that these detergents will remove a stain well. Even if you have never washed clothes before and you have come to the store you will already know the name and outward appearance of the bundle of washing powder you’ll buy. What associations have you encountered: laundry - washing powder - «the name of the powder» - removes the spots - pure white - without labor, easily.