2.2. Word association procedure
The participants were interviewed individually in their native
language, with the same procedure in each country. First, the interviewer explained to the participant that there are no right or
wrong answers. In order for the participants to be familiarized with
the task and to make them feel comfortable, the experiment
started by a warm-up session in which the participants were asked
to elicit all the words starting with the letter ‘‘b” and then all the
words coming to their minds when prompted with the word ‘‘sky”.
The experimenter did not interfere while the participants were
thinking until they said they were done, at this point, they were
prompted by the experimenter as follows ‘‘Can you write down
(or tell me) even more than that? As much as you can.” Once the participant had properly understood the principles of the experiment,
the main session started. The first stimulus word, rice, was verbally