The Evolution

The Evolution

32

Loftus (1975) or Quillian (1967, 1968, 1969), inasmuch as they require
that once a concept is activated all of its surrounding concepts must
become activated, and these concepts must in turn activate to some
degree all of the concepts that surround them, and so on.

In contrast to the above theories, the principle of residual
activation states that once a whole is activated, only the who!e-to-whole
links emanating from that entity residually activate other wholes,
and no further activations take place until a new whole is yielded.

Thus, according to the theory of spreading activation (see in par-
ticular Collins & Loftus, 1975), if "Florida" occurs, it would follow
that "beaches," "Miami," and "orange juice" would be temporarily acti-
vated in memory, and these concepts would further activate to some
degree still more concepts: that is, the spreading activation, having
reached "orange juice," would then continue to spread to "eggs," "toast,"
"salt," and so on.

In contrast, according to the principle of residual activation, if
"Florida" occurs, it would follow that "beaches," "Miami," and "orange
juice" would be residually activated, but no further activations would
take place until a new concept was yielded. Accordingly, "eggs," "toast,"
and "salt" would join the above in residual activation only when (and if)
"Florida" yielded "orange juice."

Another important difference between the theories of spreading acti-
vation and residual activation concerns the treatment of part-whole links.

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