Gang effects predict that the gangs will be stronger and have greater effects on processing as a function of the number of phonemes shared by the members of a gang, given that the gangs are of roughly equal size.
- Stemberger & MacWhinney (2004b), a pag.115

Given storage, items that are similar will tend to reinforce each other and lead to faster, more accurate performance [...]. This is a form of analogy and has sometimes been termed EXTENDED ANALOGY. [...] These "gangs" of similar items also tend to interfere with the processing of other lexical items that are similar to the members of the gang. Such "gangs effects" must be present if items are stored, and cannot be present if items are not stored.
- Stemberger & MacWhinney (2004b), a pag.109

In a gang effect, several words in the lexicon that are similar in form reinforce the patterns of phonemes or letters that they have in common.
- Stemberger & MacWhinney (2004b), a pag.113

In essence, gang effects are a new form of analogy in which a word that is being processed is compared to a larger number of words than in traditional analogy (where it is compared to only a single word), and these words affect processing by each contributing a small amount of reinforcement to bias the system toward a certain outcome.
- Stemberger & MacWhinney (2004b), a pag.114