title: Stimulus affectivity of the Danish Word Association Test as measured by response heterogeneity and Rasch scaled number of prolonged reaction times.
abstract: With the purpose of increasing the knowledge of the psychometric properties of the 70-item Danish Word Association Test, data from three samples of non-patients and psychiatric patients (N = 326) were used to provide two measures of affectivity of the stimulus words, response heterogeneity and reaction time prolongation. It was possible to fit an item response theory one-parameter measurement (Rasch) model to the number of reaction time prolongations (> or =3 seconds) for 54 of the stimulus words. Correlation between Rasch-model item parameters and response heterogeneity was high (r = 0.86), while no correlation was found between either of these measures and frequency of the stimulus words in the Danish language. Both measures of stimulus affectivity supported a theoretically based classification of stimulus words as emotional or neutral. Response heterogeneity measures and Rasch measurement item and person parameters for reaction time prolongations are provided.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. J.Ivanouw@pubhealth.ku.dk
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ivanouw
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003718:Denmark; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011594:Psychometrics; D011930:Reaction Time; D014936:Word Association Tests