Number of Available Associations and Rate of Association For Categories in Semantic Memory

Abstract

Summary Bousfield and Sedgewick showed that the cumulative number of associations produced to a category as a function of time could be described by an exponential function having the parameters m (rate of association) and C (total number of associates produced). In two experiments using male and female college students (N = 16 and N = 14, respectively), the present study investigated the hypothesis suggested by previous research, that the values of m and C for different categories are negatively correlated. S s produced examples of different categories in four-minute periods per category on mimeographed sheets. The predicted negative correlation across categories was found (Experiment I, r = .54, p < .05, one-tailed test; Experiment 2, r = .75, p < .01). Categories with a low m value had a high C value and vice versa. The effect can be explained by a model which assumes exemplars are stored more or less densely in semantic memory.