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right headphones simultaneously. They were directed to attend to one of the messages and repeat back the words (shadow it). Very little about the unattended message was processed, unless the participant’s name was said, which was noticed (the cocktail party effect). When the cocktail party effect occurred, information was lost from the attended ear. According to Anne Treisman’s feature integration theory, you must focus attention on complex incoming auditory or visual information in order to synthesize it into a meaningful pattern.

Levels of Processing Model

According to Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart’s levels of processing model, how long and how well we remember information depends on how deeply we process the information when it is encoded. With shallow processing, we use structural encoding of superficial sensory information that emphasizes the physical characteristics, such as lines and curves, of the stimulus as it first comes in. We assign no relevance to shallow processed information. For example, once traffic passes and no more traffic is coming, we cross the street. We notice that vehicles pass, but don’t pay attention to whether cars, bikes, or trucks make up the traffic and don’t remember any of them. Semantic encoding, associated with deep processing, emphasizes the meaning of verbal input. Deep processing occurs when we attach meaning to information, and create associations between the new memory and existing memories (elaboration). Most of the information we remember over long periods is semantically encoded. For example, if you noticed a new red sports car, just like the one you dream about owning, zoom past you with the license plate, “FASTEST1,” and with your English teacher in the driver’s seat, you would probably remember it. One of the best ways to facilitate later recall is to relate the new information to ourselves (self-referent encoding).

Three-Stage Model

A more specific information processing model, the Atkinson–Shiffrin three-stage model of memory, describes three different memory systems characterized by time frames: sensory memory, short-term memory (STM), and long-term memory (LTM) (see Figure 11.1). External events from our senses are held in our sensory memory just long enough to be perceived. In sensory memory, visual or iconic memory that completely represents a visual stimulus lasts for less than a second, just long enough to ensure that we don’t see gaps between frames in a motion picture. Auditory or echoic memory lasts for about 4 seconds, just long enough for us to hear a flow of information. Most information in sensory memory is lost. Our selective attention, focusing of awareness on a specific stimulus in sensory memory, determines which very small fraction of information perceived in sensory memory is encoded into short-term memory. Encoding can be processed automatically or require our effort. Automatic processing is unconscious encoding of information about space, time, and frequency that occurs without interfering with our thinking about other things. This is an example of parallel processing, a natural mode of information processing that involves several information streams simultaneously. Effortful processing is encoding that requires our focused attention and conscious effort.

Figure 11.1 Atkinson–Shiffrin three-stage model of memory.

Short-Term Memory

Short-term memory (STM) can hold a limited amount of information for about 30 seconds unless it is processed further. Experiments by George Miller demonstrated that the capacity of STM is approximately seven (plus or minus two) unrelated bits of information at one time. STM lasts just long enough for us to input a seven-digit phone number after looking it up in a telephone directory. Then the number disappears from our memory. How can we get around these limitations of STM? We can hold our memory longer in STM if we rehearse the new information, consciously repeat it. The more time we spend learning new information, the more we retain of it. Even after we’ve learned information, more rehearsal increases our retention.