The Evolution

The Evolution
36

the letter. In other words, memory saves more time by completing the
activation of the whole-to-whole links ahead of time than the activation
of the part-whole links, because activating the whole-to-whole links is
the more time-consuming procedure.

The assumption that whole-to-whole links take longer to activate
will be termed activation asymmetry.

In addition, the theory offered here argues that part-whole links
(such as the one that runs between the letter Z and the word Zebra)
cannot under residual activation, and that if they are activated first,
memory will inevitably find that trying to keep them activated disrupts
the process of acquiring new information (such as the whole-to-whole
links of the relevant noun category), and consequently memory will find
intersection a slower and more difficult process. This disruption will
be termed activation interference.

Of course, either activation asymmetry or activation interference
taken separately is sufficient to account for the results of Freedman
and Loftus (1971). Because the yielding of the word Zebra by animal-Z
is a Type II intersection, one can simply argue that the whole-to-whole
links of the noun category should precede the part-whole links of the
letter so as to avoid activation interference, or to take advantage of
activation asymmetry, or both. But both activation asymmetry and activa-
tion interference are useful, and perhaps necessary, if one wishes to
account for the full range of effects order may have on Type II intersection

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