Preliminary Experiments on an Improved Artificial Player for a Word Association Game

This paper presents recent developments of a software system that acts as an artificial player for a popular word association game. The game was proposed for the Evaluation Campaign of Natural Language Processing and Speech Tools for Italian in 2020, and it attracted the interest of various researchers. Several aspects of the recent developments of the artificial player are discussed, from the collection of the texts used to acquire sufficient linguistic knowledge, to the improvements of the algorithm employed to play the game. Preliminary, but encouraging, experimental results are also discussed in comparison with other artificial players for the same game.