Types of Processing

Shallow Processing

• A type of processing that requires little elaboration

• Focusing on superficial and/or perceptual events

• Leads to shorter retention times

• Like encoding a word based on the font it was typed in

  • Uses surface features without speculating upon them

Deep Processing

• Focusing on the meaning with deeper elaboration

• Leads to longer retention times

• When encoding, the information is contemplated and features beyond the immediate sense-able ones are thought of

  • Memories with more detail are retrieved better, even if some of the details don’t survive

• Also involves connecting information to previous learning

  • Connecting memories to preexisting ones also aids in retrieval

Types of Encoding

Visual

• Encoding based on visual stimulus

• Like encoding based on a word that is both italicized and colored red

Acoustic

• Encoding based on auditory stimulus

• Rhyming

• Advertisement jingles

Semantic

• Encoding based on meaning

• Leads to the best retention

• This is most commonly used in deep processing

Phenomena

Spacing Effects

Massed Practice

• Trying to encode everything at once

• Like cramming the night before a test

• Leads to poor retention

Distributed Practice

• Encoding over multiple time periods

• The more time given, the better retention

Spacing Effect

• The principle that distributed practice lends itself to long term retention

Testing Effect

• Retrieving information is more powerful than restudying and rereading

• Practice tests are a more effective method of studying than just going over notes

• This makes you strengthen the retrieval pathway and neural connections, which will aid on the real test

• When you reread notes, you aren’t having to retrieve to strengthen anything

Order Effects

Serial Position Effect

• The items that comes first and last in a list are remembered best

• Relates to the recency effect

Recency Effect

• Items you have just reviewed are remembered best

• This could because they just recently passed through the working memory

Primacy Effect

• The first items in a list are remembered best in the long term

Organizing Effects

Chunking

• Clustering items into units

• Especially useful if the chunk has a meaning

  • Remembering a phone number can become easier when you break it into three parts

  • You may only need two parts if the area code is one you know well

Mnemonics

• Memory devices

• Often use association or imagery

• Key-word method, peg word method, method of loci

Hierarchies

• Creating categories with subdivisions