A study on the semantic association of Brazilian Portuguese words.

Purpose: To collect the semantic association norms of 96 Brazilian Portuguese words for further application in the formulation of a speech recognition test using sentences with controlled word predictability.

Methods: Study participants were 67 volunteers aged 18 to 27 years. A semantic association task with word class delimitation was used.

Results: The mean sizes of the total and meaning sets were larger in the second recall to both verb and noun classes. The prevalent semantic association strength in the first recall was strong to the first word and moderate to the second word. In the second recall, the prevalent semantic association strength was moderate to both the first and second words. Significant negative correlation was observed between association strength and total and meaning set sizes.

Conclusion: The semantic association norms of 96 Brazilian Portuguese words were collected as proposed and resulted in semantic associates for each target word in the verb and noun classes that were used in a speech recognition assessment considering sentences with controlled word predictability.