This effect was proposed with Anderson's ACT* methodology for concept classification as a model for the human brain, and was based on the assumption that the brain uses a spreading activation of concepts in order to do classification. His conclusion is that the associativity of the brain is based on the probabilistic nature of the environment it is exposed to, and that the ability to classify is an extension of this; the fan of the network is not the critical factor in classification. This is one of his arguments for the notion that to understand the workings of a cognitive architecture (namely, the human brain), one must look not within the architecture, but at the environment the architecture acts in. This is known as rational analysis.
Simon
strongly discounts this point-of-view in his article
titled "Cognitive Architectures: Comment". His argument is essentially one
of bounded rationality.
Assumptions
List of Theories
Table of Contents.