The diffusion activation model explains how related concepts are processed in working memory. Semantic long-term memory consists of interconnected concepts, and when one is activated, related concepts are also activated, incentivizing recall. The strength of connections between ideas affects recall speed, and individual experience influences semantic categories.
Diffuse activation is a model of working memory, also known as short-term memory, that seeks to explain how the mind processes related ideas, particularly semantic or verbal concepts. The diffusion activation model is one way cognitive psychologists explain priming, which is the observable phenomenon whereby a person is able to recall information about a subject more quickly once a related concept is introduced. According to this model, semantic long-term memory consists of a large network of interconnected concepts. When a person is presented with any concept, the concepts most closely related to it are activated in that person’s mind, preparing or “incentivising” them to recall information related to one of them.
According to the diffuse activation theory, each semantic concept has a node in the neural network which is activated at the same time as the nodes for related concepts. If a person is introduced to the concept of “dog,” nodes for concepts such as “bark,” “beagle,” and “pet” might be activated, causing them to think of these related words. Depending on which “dog” concept is presented next, the person is able to recall any information that might be relevant to the task at hand. One such task might be to evaluate the accuracy of semantic declarations. For example, the person might verify the statement “A beagle is a dog” more quickly if she already knows that the subject in question is “dog”.
The stronger the connection between ideas, the faster the person is able to recall the relevant information. A person can probably verify the statement “A bird is an animal” very quickly, because birds are very common examples, typical of the “animal” category. On the other hand, the same person would probably take much longer to process and verify the statement “A chinchilla is an animal,” because a chinchilla is an atypical member of the category. The diffusion activation model would explain this difficulty by saying that the node for “chinchilla” would not necessarily be activated by the category “animal”.
Of course, the associations between semantic concepts vary greatly from person to person. Someone who has a pet chinchilla, for example, will have far greater connections between “animal” and “chinchilla” than the general population. In this way the semantic categories described by activation diffusion are a product of both the content itself and individual experience. For this reason, the diffusion activation model is very useful for describing how the mind responded to a semantic task, but not necessarily useful for predicting how a person will respond to a given task.
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