My understanding is that this is, essentially, the optimization that you get with many common "entity component system" frameworks. That is, you typically try to keep homogeneous collections of entities so that when you are processing them, you are doing a similar processing in a loop.

Amusingly, as I try to google to make sure I am using the right terms, I find https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28200030 as a good result. Seems to cover the general idea and hints at other terms to look into. In particular, have fun with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AoS_and_SoA. :D

Edit: I should add that I'm pretty sure my memory conjuring up ECS stuff was just mistaken, btw. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data-oriented_design is probably what I actually had in mind.