Mental model organization.
Previous research (Radvansky & Zacks, 1991) has shown that the fan effect is mediated not by the number of nominal associations paired with a concept but by the number of mental models into which related concepts are organized. Specifically, newly learned "facts" about different objects in one location are integrated into a single mental model and no fan effect is produced, whereas facts about one object in different locations are not integrated and a fan effect is produced. In 6 experiments we investigated several factors' influence on location-based organization preferences. We found no impact of either article type (definite or indefinite) or object transportability. However, animate sentence subjects (people) reduced preference for location-based organizations. A clear person-based organization emerged by using locations that typically contain only a single person (e.g., phone booth) to make location-based situations less plausible.
Radvansky
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Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing 48224-1117.
Spieler
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DH
Zacks
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D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011930:Reaction Time