Does Activation Really Spread?

In this article we consider three versions of the spreading activation model for retrieval of information from memory. Predictions are derived for activation spreading down a linear network structure as a function of time. To test these predictions, two experiments were performed in which facilitation as a function of time was measured for target words in a linearly structured paragraph. A target word was primed either by a word near to the target in the paragraph structure or by a word far from the target. Results showed that facilitation begins at about the same time for the far and near conditions. This is inconsistent with the predictions derived from the models. Implications of these results are discussed and alternative conceptions of the activation process are described.