Was going to say this same thing to back you up. We can't both defend this "obvious" study by saying "it's good to have data to back it up!" And then simultaneously argue against having data because it's "too obvious".
I completely agree, a study like this is as good as worthless without disclosing the list of words, or the methodology used for testing words (if they are stored in a latent space rather than a list, for example).