词汇联想（WA）任务是一种具有心理和认知现实性、兼具质化与量化特质的实验方法，广泛应用于语言习得与加工研究。本文介绍了WA研究的理论共源（连结观、涌现观和动态观），在借助CiteSpace总览其研究现状的基础上，围绕刺激词的选取、联想词的分析、实验过程的控制以及受试个体特征的影响等方面讨论了WA实验方法的发展特征，并继续从联想语境、词汇多义及两词搭配等方面展望了WA的研究趋势。

Word association (WA) is a psychologically and cognitively real mechanism for language acquisition and language processing with both qualitative and quantitative characteristics. The paper firstly introduces the three theoretical cornerstones of WA research; secondly reviews the existing empirical studies based on CiteSpace; thirdly investigates the WA protocols focusing on cue selection, response analysis, experimental control and subject idiosyncrasy; lastly discusses the research trends concerning context availability, lexical polysemy and two-word collocation.