Professor Giles asks his students to write down the first word that come to mind when they see the word "fish". Bob writes down "sea", James writes down "chips", and Angela writes down "net". According to the spreading activation theory, this result .

makes sense because personal experiences determine how people organize general knowledge                        

Explanation:

Spreading activation theory: In cognitive psychology, the term "spreading activation theory" is described as a phenomenon that provides an array of specific concepts within an individual's memory as one of the different cognitive units, where each consists of particular note and therefore its associated or connected characteristics or elements, all are being joined together through edges.

In the question above, the statement signifies that every single person possesses different experience and knowledge which is responsible for determining the uniqueness of a person.

the atm that sounds like it should be the answer