PROCESSING DEPTH, ELABORATION OF ENCODING, MEMORY STORES, AND EXPENDED PROCESSING CAPACITY

Used the divided attention technique introduced by W. A. Johnson et al to assess the effects of several factors on expended processing capacity, which was indexed by the slowing of simple reaction time during the concurrent processing of other information; Ss were 28 university students. Expended processing capacity was greater when information was retrieved from secondary memory than from primary memory; when processing was of a deep, semantic nature than when it was shallow and physical; and when processing was more elaborate. The evidence thus suggests that expended processing capacity accurately reflects important aspects of memorial functioning. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1979 American Psychological Association.