I thought of the color blue and a pickaxe, but the pickaxe’s blades shrank and became more hammer-like as soon as I saw the word “hammer” in my lower peripheral vision, and as soon as I saw “red hammer” it became a blue-hammer instead of “blue” and “hammer.” It was a weird several seconds.
Would the results still be 98% (or whatever they are) without all the math? I’ve heard it suggested that when most people think of an example of a “fruit” they think of an apple, since it’s seen as the iconic sort of fruit. Had nothing to do with any pre-question distraction. I like cool colors better than warm colors, and I’ve got strong memories using a pickaxe to dig in my rock-and-clay backyard on many occasions—so those two associations are my theory on why I chose that color and that tool (of course, if I had thought of other things I would make up some other association explanation, so not sure how real my “explanation” is.)