This figure represents the phonological neighborhood of the word 'badge'. This phonological neighborhood consists of words that sound similar to 'badge', such as 'badger', 'back', 'bag' and 'bat'. Words that sound similar to each other are connected to each other. The word 'badge' is really cool because the words that sound like it also tend to sound like each other, like 'back' and 'bag'. They are like your friends who are also friends with each other.
I made this with code adapted from http://www.r-bloggers.com/the-maker-way-using-r-to-reify-social-media-data-via-3d-printing/
Also check out: Chan, K. Y., & Vitevitch, M. S. (2009). The influence of the phonological neighborhood clustering coefficient on spoken word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35(6), 1934-49.