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Fan effect
About: Fan effect is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 68 publications have been published within this topic receiving 6124 citations.
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01 Sep 1976TL;DR: In this article, a theory about human cognitive functioning, a set of experiments testing that theory, and a review of some of the literature relevant to the theory are presented, embodied in a computer simulation model called ACT.
Abstract: Published in 1976, Language, Memory, and thought is a valuable contribution to the field of Cognitive Psychology. This book presents a theory about human cognitive functioning, a set of experiments testing that theory, and a review of some of the literature relevant to the theory. The theory is embodied in a computer simulation model called ACT.
1,965 citations
TL;DR: The ACT theory of factual memory as mentioned in this paper states that information is encoded in an all-or-none manner into cognitive units and the strength of these units increases with practice and decays with delay.
1,908 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that low-working-memory Ss showed the positive fan effect typically found with thematically unrelated sentences, whereas high-span Ss were more likely to experience a negative fan effect when the slope of the fan effect was partialed out of the relationship between working-memory span and verbal abilities, the relationship was reduced to nonsignificance.
Abstract: One explanation of the correlation often observed between working-memory span scores and reading comprehension is that individuals differ in level of activation available for long-term memory units. Two experiments used the fan manipulation to test this idea. In Experiment 1, high- and low-working-memory Ss learned a set of unrelated sentences varying in the number of shared concepts (fan) and then performed speeded recognition for those sentences. Low-working-memory Ss showed a larger increase in recognition time as fan increased. When the slope of the fan effect was partialed out of the relationship between working-memory span and verbal abilities, the relationship was reduced to nonsignificance. In Experiment 2, Ss learned thematically related sentences that varied in fan. Low-span Ss showed the positive fan effect typically found with thematically unrelated sentences, whereas high-span Ss showed a negative fan effect. The results are discussed in terms of a general capacity theory.
286 citations
TL;DR: The Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational (ACT-R) theory as mentioned in this paper is consistent with the results of G. A. Radvansky et al. and there is no evidence for concept suppression in a new fan experiment.
Abstract: The fan effect (J. R. Anderson, 1974) has been attributed to interference among competing associations to a concept. Recently, it has been suggested that such effects might be due to multiple mental models (G. A. Radvansky. D. H. Spieler, & R. T. Zacks, 1993) or suppression of concepts (M. C. Anderson & B. A. Spellman, 1995; A. R. A. Conway & R. W. Engle, 1994). It was found that the Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational (ACT-R) theory, which embodies associative interference, is consistent with the results of G. A. Radvansky et al. and that there is no evidence for concept suppression in a new fan experiment. The ACT-R model provides good quantitative fits to the results, as shown in a variety of experiments. The 3 key concepts in these fits are (a) the associative strength between 2 concepts reflects the degree to which one concept predicts the other; (b) foils are rejected by retrieving mismatching facts; and (c) participants can adjust the relative weights they give to various cues in retrieval.
279 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an inhibition-ba sed fan effect hypothesis was tested using a negative priming paradigm in Experiments I and 2 and a short-term memory scanning paradigm in Experiment 3.
Abstract: An inhibition-ba sed fan effect hypothesis was tested using a negative priming paradigm in Experiments I and 2 and a short-term memory scanning paradigm in Experiment 3. In Experiment 1 and 2, the time to name a letter (surrounded by 1 to 3 distractor letters) was longer when it had been a distractor on the previous display than in a control condition where the target letter had not been one of the distractors in the previous display. This negative priming effect attenuated as the number of distractors in the previous display increased. We interpret this fan effect as a manifestation of a limited capacity spreading inhibition counterpart to .spreading activation. Median split data, isolating faster from slower subjects, suggested that an irrelevancy heuristic may be involved because the best performances (fastest overall RTs) were produced by people who also produced relatively greater magnitudes of negative priming. By having irrelevant information momentarily less available, overall advantages in processing appear to be gained through reduced interference from distracting stimuli. The juxtaposition of an irrelevancy with a relevancy heuristic (Anderson, 1983a) supports the possible existence of a spreading inhibition counterpart of spreading activation. Several key predictions based upon this framework were confirmed in a modified short-term memory scanning task in Experiment 3.
185 citations