spreading activation

collocation in English

meaningsofspreadandactivation

These words are often used together. Click on the links below to explore the meanings. Or,see other collocations withactivation.
spread
noun
uk
/spred/
us
/spred/
the development or growth of something so that it covers a larger area or affects a larger number ...
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activation
noun[U]
uk
/ˌæk.tɪˈveɪ.ʃən/
us
/ˌæk.təˈveɪ.ʃən/
the act of making something start or making it ...
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(Definition ofspreadandactivationfrom theCambridge English Dictionary© Cambridge University Press)

Examplesofspreading activation

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
The mechanism underlying backward priming in a lexical decision task:spreadingactivationversus semantic matching.
From theCambridge English Corpus
This is problematic since priming is assumed to reflect automaticspreadingactivation.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Therefore, an automaticspreadingactivationmechanism triggers a large number of simultaneous mental representations.
From theCambridge English Corpus
In this model, maintenance of activated representations is achieved by two parameters ofspreadingactivation, its strength and its duration.
From theCambridge English Corpus
The range of automaticspreadingactivationin word priming.
From theCambridge English Corpus
The dynamic model forspreadingactivationhas been formulated based on some "quasineurological" allusion.
From theCambridge English Corpus
We propose thatspreadingactivationprovides a backup for when sentence integration fails.
From theCambridge English Corpus
It includes a theory of processing based onspreadingactivation.
From theCambridge English Corpus
This approach is widely used in modelling language use and acquisition and also captures well thespreadingactivationresults in psycholinguistics.
From theCambridge English Corpus
The larger span ofspreadingactivationmay potentially result in greater divergent thinking, which is considered an important component of creative thought.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Thisspreadingactivationmechanism establishes associations that link concepts from distant categories.
From theCambridge English Corpus
On this view,spreadingactivationis a functional principle that characterizes the dynamics of lexical access at all levels of representation.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Thus, priming andspreadingactivationamong linguistic levels operates in children at least as young as seven.
From theCambridge English Corpus
A form ofspreadingactivationis then employed within the semantic net.
From theCambridge English Corpus
Berg adopts a parallelspreadingactivationmodel of processing to predict processing influences.
From theCambridge English Corpus
The main role ofspreadingactivationin speech processing is in selecting a single target node from among the millions of nodes in the network.
From theCambridge English Corpus
This is because of the mechanism ofspreadingactivationwhereby a node only spreads its activation ('fires') when it reaches a threshold level.
From theCambridge English Corpus
He then relates these effects to psycholinguisticspreadingactivationmodels.
From theCambridge English Corpus
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
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