The role of experimental design in investigations of the fan effect.

Moeser, Shannon Dawn

doi:10.1037/0278-7393.5.2.125

Cited by 42 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…With appropriate instructions, subjects do attempt to obtain the gist of scrambled stories, and they meet with some success -though less than with unscrambled (normal) ones Kieras, 1978Kieras, , 1981Kintsch, Mandel, & Kozminsky, 1977;Mandler, 1978;Schwartz & Flammer, 1981;Stein & Glenn, 1979;Thorndyke, 1977). Indeed, the probability of integration is lowered simply by separating what should ordinarily be consecutive units (Frase, 1975;Hayes-Roth & Thorndyke, 1979;Moeser, 1977Moeser, , 1979Walker & Meyer, 1980). Second, the scrambling manipulation provided an empirical test of the processing shift hypothesis because stimuli presented in a scrambled order, by definition, are relatively incongruent.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface information loss in comprehension

Gernsbacher

1985

Cognitive Psychology

201

185

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Shortly after a sentence has been comprehended, information about its exact surface form (e.g., its word order) becomes less available. The present research demonstrated this phenomenon during the comprehension of nonverbal stimuli (picture stories). In Experiment 1, significantly more surface (left/right orientation) information was lost after comprehending several picture stories than just one; in Experiment 2, more was lost after comprehending an entire picture story than half of one. In Experiment 3, subjects segmented the picture stories into their constituents; in Experiment 4, significantly more surface information was lost after crossing these constituents' boundaries than before. The present research also investigated why surface information is lost. Four explanations were considered: Surface information loss is the result of performing grammatical transformations (the linguistic hypothesis), exceeding short-term memory limitations (the memory limitations hypothesis), integrating information into gist (the integration hypothesis), shifting from building one substructure to initiating another (the processing shift hypothesis). The linguistic and memory limitations hypotheses were considered inadequate; the integration and the processing shift hypotheses were tested in the last set of experiments. In Experiment 5 (using nonverbal stimuli), the predictions made by the processing shift hypothesis were confirmed; in Experiment 6 (using verbal stimuli), these results were replicated. Other implications of the processing shift hypothesis concerning surface information loss are discussed.A well-known phenomenon involved in language comprehension is this: Shortly after a passage is comprehended, information about the exact surface form of its sentences (e.g., their word order) becomes less available. By far the most cited demonstration of this phenomenon is Sachs ' (1967). Her subjects listened to a narrative story that included a sentence such as 1. He sent a letter about it to Galileo, the great Italian scientist.After comprehending this sentence, subjects decided whether it or Sentence 2 was the sentence they just heard. 2A letter about it was sent to Galileo, the great Italian scientist.If subjects were tested immediately after hearing the target sentence, their ability to discriminate between it and its reversed form was around 90%. However, if they were tested after comprehending only 80 additional syllables, performance fell to just above chance.Requests for reprints should be sent to Dr. M. A. Gernsbacher,

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface information loss in comprehension

Gernsbacher

1985

Cognitive Psychology

201

185

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“…The fan effect can be attenuated or eliminated if a set of facts is related thematically (Moeser, 1979;Myers, O'Brien, Balota, & Toyofuku, 1984;Smith, Adams, & Schorr, 1978) or situationally (e.g., Radvansky, 1998;Radvansky, Spieler, & Zacks, 1993;Radvansky & Zacks, 1991). Of specific concern here is a paradigm originally developed by Radvansky and Zacks (1991;Radvansky et al, 1993).…”

Section: Retrieval Interferencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is not strictly a spatial effect, in that it has also been observed with ownership (Radvansky, Wyer, Curiel, & Lutz, 1997) and temporal relations (Radvansky, Zwaan, Federico, & Franklin, 1998). Basically, integrated representations do not produce a fan effect, whereas separately stored but related representations do (e.g., Moeser, 1979;Smith et al, 1978).…”

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confidence: 99%

Spatial directions and situation model organization

Radvansky

2009

Memory & Cognition

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Do spatial directions, such as "to the right," influence the integration and segregation of information into situation models? According to a single-framework hypothesis, spatial location serves as an event framework, and spatial directions serve as relational information within that framework but do not establish separate sublocation frameworks. Alternatively, according to a fragmented-framework hypothesis, spatial directions lead the larger framework to be broken down such that each direction is treated as a separate sublocation, thereby producing retrieval interference. In three experiments, people memorized sentences about objects in locations. The results support the fragmented-framework hypothesis. Control conditions ruled out explanations based on the ease of memorization, retrieval demands, or sentence complexity.

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“…R. Anderson, 1974). Fan effects occur when related information cannot be integrated in memory but not when it can (Moeser, 1979;Radvansky et al, 1993;Radvansky, Wyer, Curiel, & Lutz, 1997;Radvansky & Zacks, 1991;Radvansky et al, 1996;Radvansky, Zwaan, Federico, & Franklin, in press;Smith, Adams, & Schorr, 1978), as can be done with situation models. For example, it is difficult to integrate the facts "The potted palm is in the hotel" and "The potted palm is in the barber shop" because although they share a concept (potted palm), they refer to separate situations.…”

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confidence: 99%

The organization of information retrieved from situation models

Radvansky

1998

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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The role of experimental design in investigations of the fan effect.

Cited by 42 publications

References 19 publications

Surface information loss in comprehension

Surface information loss in comprehension

Spatial directions and situation model organization

The organization of information retrieved from situation models

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