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Related Experiment Videos

Differential fan effect and attentional focus.

Myeong-Ho Sohn1, John R Anderson, Lynne M Reder

  • 1Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. mhsohn@gwu.edu

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
|December 8, 2004
PubMed
Summary

The fan effect, where learning more facts slows retrieval, is stronger when attention is focused on a specific dimension, challenging mental-model theory. This suggests concept associations are crucial for retrieval, especially with focused attention.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Human Memory

Background:

  • The fan effect describes increased retrieval time with more associated facts.
  • Mental-model theory proposes the fan effect diminishes with organized information.
  • Prior research attributes the fan effect to associative competition.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the influence of attentional focus on the fan effect.
  • To test the predictions of mental-model theory regarding information organization and retrieval.
  • To examine the role of associative competition under focused attention.

Main Methods:

  • Participants learned person-location pairs.
  • Attentional focus was manipulated (person vs. location dimension).
  • Retrieval times were measured to assess the fan effect.

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Main Results:

  • The fan effect was significantly larger for the focused dimension compared to the nonfocused dimension.
  • Results contradicted the mental-model theory's prediction of reduced fan effect.
  • Attentional focus appeared to accentuate the impact of information associations.

Conclusions:

  • The number of associations remains critical for memory retrieval.
  • Attentional focus may amplify the influence of associative strength on retrieval.
  • Findings support associative competition models over mental-model theory in this context.