The fan effect: New results and new theories (1999)

John R. Anderson, Lynne M. Reder

Bibliographic Entry

Anderson, J. R. & Reder, L. M. (1999). The fan effect: New results and new theories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 128, 186-197.

Abstract

The fan effect (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 (Radvansky, Spieler, & Zacks, 1993) or suppression of concepts (Anderson & Spellman, 1995; Conway & Engle, 1994). We show that the ACT-R (Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational) theory, which embodies associative interference, is consistent with the Radvansky et al results and we fail to find any evidence for concept suppression in a new fan experiment. The ACT-R model provides good quantitative fits to the results from a variety of experiments. The three key concepts in these fits are (a) the associative strength between two concepts reflect the degree to which one concept predicts the other; (b) foils are rejected by retrieving mismatching facts; and (c) subjects can adjust the relative weights they give to various cues in retrieval.

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Supplemental Files

• ACT-R 4.0 web-based simulations

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