Explain the basic ideas of levels-of-processing theory, using an example to illustrate your explanation. How do the research findings that support levels-of-processing theory help us understand why some study strategies, such as highlighting, are not

Question

always effective?

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The levels-of-processing theory holds that people subject stimuli to different levels of mental processing and retain only the information that has been subjected to the most thorough processing. For example, you might perceive a tree, but pay little attention to it. Since this is the lowest level of processing, you are unlikely to remember the tree. Second, you might give the tree a name such as "tree" or "oak." Once named, the tree is somewhat more likely to be remembered. The highest level of processing, however, is giving meaning to the tree. You might have climbed the tree, for example.
Study strategies such as highlighting are ineffective when students use them at a shallow level of processing. A student who highlights "everything," for instance, is omitting the deep processing of meaning that would occur if important ideas were being selected before highlighting.