Long-term memory search: An intersecting activation process

doi:10.1016/0022-5371(76)90053-0

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Volume 15, Issue 6, December 1976, Pages 587-605

https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-5371(76)90053-0 Get rights and content

Abstract

Subjects memorized subject-verb-object propositions and then judged whether verb-object probes appeared in the same proposition. Propositions either were connected via a common subject or were unconnected. Number of propositions associated with particular verbs and objects (fan) was also manipulated. Judgments were made under accuracy or speed emphasis. Reaction times and error rates were directly related to fan. Connectedness significantly increased reaction times and error rates for negative judgments. The data are consistent with a model which assumes that activation spreads from probe concepts in parallel through the propositional network, at a rate which varies inversely with the number of paths it must follow. When two sources of activation intersect, a positive response is generated. If no intersection is detected within some period of time, a negative response is initiated. A guessing model for errors was shown to account satisfactorily for all relationships between reaction times and errors in the data, including speed-accuracy trade-off effects, while assuming that memory search processes remain constant.

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Cited by (33)

A Spreading Activation Theory of Memory
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The ACT theory of factual memory is presented. According to this theory, 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. The essential process to memory performance is the retrieval operation. It is proposed that the cognitive units form an interconnected network and that retrieval is performed by spreading activation throughout the network. Level of activation in the network determines rate and probability of recall. With these assumptions in place, the ACT theory is shown to predict interference results in memory, judgements of associative relatedness, impact of extensive practice on memory, the differences between recognition and recall, effects of elaborative processing, and effects of reconstructive recall.
Modeling fan effects on the time course of associative recognition
2012, Cognitive Psychology
Citation Excerpt :
After memorizing the facts during a study phase, subjects perform a recognition task during a test phase in which they have to distinguish between targets (studied facts) and foils (non-studied facts, which are usually rearranged items from the studied facts; e.g., The detective is in the park). The main finding from fan manipulations in the fact retrieval paradigm is the fan effect: recognition takes longer for items with higher fans (e.g., Anderson, 1974; King & Anderson, 1976; Pirolli & Anderson, 1985; for reviews, see Anderson, 2007; Anderson & Reder, 1999). Recognition accuracy also tends to be lower for items with higher fans, as reflected in higher false alarm rates but mixed effects on hit rates (Dyne, Humphreys, Bain, & Pike, 1990; Verde, 2004; see also Postman, 1976).
We investigated the time course of associative recognition using the response signal procedure, whereby a stimulus is presented and followed after a variable lag by a signal indicating that an immediate response is required. More specifically, we examined the effects of associative fan (the number of associations that an item has with other items in memory) on speed–accuracy tradeoff functions obtained in a previous response signal experiment involving briefly studied materials and in a new experiment involving well-learned materials. High fan lowered asymptotic accuracy or the rate of rise in accuracy across lags, or both. We developed an Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational (ACT-R) model for the response signal procedure to explain these effects. The model assumes that high fan results in weak associative activation that slows memory retrieval, thereby decreasing the probability that retrieval finishes in time and producing a speed–accuracy tradeoff function. The ACT-R model provided an excellent account of the data, yielding quantitative fits that were as good as those of the best descriptive model for response signal data.
A neuronal basis for the fan effect
2000, Cognitive Science
The fan effect says that “activation” spreading from a concept is divided among the concepts it spreads to. Because this activation is not a physical entity, but an abstraction of unknown lower-level processes, the spreading-activation model has predictive but not explanatory power. We provide one explanation of the fan effect by showing that distributed neuronal memory networks (specifically, Hopfield networks) reproduce four qualitative aspects of the fan effect: faster recognition of sentences containing lower-fan words, faster recognition of sentences when more cues are provided, faster acceptance of studied sentences than rejection of probes, and faster recognition of sentences studied more frequently. These are all a natural result of the dynamics of distributed associative memory.
Interference in complex knowledge structures
1993, Advances in Psychology
In this paper we review research investigating interference effects during the retrieval of knowledge from interrelated memory structures. We then argue that many studies of interference, i.e., of the fan effect, suffer from two major problems: First, in explanations of the occurrence and absence of interference, assumptions about the memory representation cannot be separated from assumptions about response strategies. Second, the materials used so far are highly artificial and hardly allow conclusions regarding the acquisition of large knowledge structures from expository or narrative texts. We describe the logic of a series of experiments that aim to avoid these problems. The data obtained thus far provide some straightforward answers concerning the occurrence and avoidance of interference during memory retrieval.
A computerised clinical test of forgetting based on the ACT model of memory retrieval
1990, International Journal of Man-Machine Studies
The ACT model of interference (Anderson, 1976) was applied to a visual-search paradigm using an elderly population (N=22) 65–85 years, in order to develop a computerised clinical test of forgetting. The test is to be used to identify similarities and differences between etiologically-distinct amnesic populations on the basis of susceptibility to interference. A visual-search task manipulated the number of examples presented in association with a particular category. This was achieved by requiring the subject to search for a varied number of distractor examples with a target example. As predicted by the ACT model, increasing the number of distractors resulted in slower identification of the target item, as measured by increased recognition response latency. Also as predicted, increasing the number of distractors also increased the number of recognition errors. The interference effect produced by the distractors was reduced by strengthening the association between the target word and the category. This was achieved by presenting the target and category a second time in the presence of different distractors. The test's potential as an automated assessment device is discussed.
A spreading activation theory of memory
1983, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior
The ACT theory of factual memory is presented. According to this theory, 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. The essential process to memory performance is the retrieval operation. It is proposed that the cognitive units form an interconnected network and that retrieval is performed by spreading activation throughout the network. Level of activation in the network determines rate and probability of recall. With these assumptions in place, the ACT theory is shown to predict interference results in memory, judgements of associative relatedness, impact of extensive practice on memory, the differences between recognition and recall, effects of elaborative processing, and effects of reconstructive recall.

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: This research was supported in part by NSF Grant No. GB-40298 to J. Anderson and in part by the Office of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, under Order No. 1949, and was monitored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under Contract No. F 44620-72-C-0019 to the Human Performance Center.

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Long-term memory search: An intersecting activation process

Abstract

Cognitive Psychology

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

Cognitive Psychology

Item-specific and relation-specific interference in sentence memory

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory

Language, memory, and thought

Human associative memory

STEPIT program 90PE66, quantum chemistry program exchange