M. Heil et al., DYNAMICS OF ACTIVATION IN LONG-TERM-MEMORY - THE RETRIEVAL OF VERBAL,PICTORIAL, SPATIAL, AND COLOR INFORMATION, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition, 20(1), 1994, pp. 185-200
Paivio's (1986) dual code theory was tested in 5 experiments with a ne
w paradigm for the FAN effect that enforced genuine memory recall. Sub
jects had to learn associations between concepts and mediators. The FA
N of the concepts in relation to the mediators was varied systematical
ly. Response times (RT) were measured while subjects had to decide whe
ther 2 concepts were linked to each other or not by a common mediator.
In Experiment 1 the concepts and mediators were words, whereas in the
other experiments the concepts were line drawings. Colors served as m
ediators in Experiment 2 and spatial locations served as mediators in
Experiments 3, 4, and 5. All of the experiments were equivalent with r
espect to the FAN, the learning procedure, and the retrieval test. In
all of the experiments, RT proved to be a linear function of the FAN.
These results suggested that the same dynamics hold for all types of i
nformation stored in long-term memory.