Questions: Memory Encoding and Levels of Processing

Question 1

A student re-reads their textbook chapter for two hours before an exam. A classmate spends one hour answering practice questions on the same material without looking at the text. Who is most likely to perform better, and why?

• A. The re-reader — more total time with the material produces stronger memories through repeated exposure
• B. Both equally — the total amount of study time is the primary predictor of exam performance
• C. The practice-question student — generating answers requires deep retrieval-like processing that creates more durable memory traces than passive re-reading
• D. The re-reader — re-reading is elaborative rehearsal because the student is reviewing meaningful content

Answer: (C)

Re-reading is essentially maintenance rehearsal applied to text: it keeps information active but does not require meaningful engagement. The practice-question student must generate answers, which forces deep processing identical to retrieval — the generation effect demonstrates this produces significantly stronger encoding. Re-reading is also subject to fluency illusion: it feels productive because familiar material is easy to process, but ease of processing is not the same as strength of encoding. Option D contains a common error: re-reading is passive, not elaborative.

Question 2

According to Craik and Lockhart's levels-of-processing framework, which of the following encoding tasks would most likely produce the best retention of a word one week later?

• A. Silently repeating the word 20 times to keep it in mind (maintenance rehearsal)
• B. Checking whether the word is printed in capital or lowercase letters
• C. Counting how many letters in the word share a vertical line of symmetry
• D. Deciding whether the word accurately describes your own personality and why

Answer: (D)

The self-reference effect is one of the most powerful instances of deep processing. Judging whether a word describes your own personality activates a rich, well-elaborated self-schema in long-term memory, creating multiple connections to existing knowledge. Options A–C represent increasingly shallow processing: phonological (option A), orthographic/structural (B and C). Shallow processing produces weak, easily-forgotten traces; deep semantic and self-referential processing produces durable ones.

Question 3

Maintenance rehearsal — mentally repeating information over and over — is an effective strategy for moving information from working memory into long-term memory.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

Maintenance rehearsal keeps information active in working memory but does not reliably transfer it to long-term memory. Levels-of-processing research shows that the depth of meaning-making, not the number of repetitions, determines long-term retention. Craik and Lockhart demonstrated this with incidental learning experiments: participants who judged the meaning of words remembered far more than those who simply repeated them, even without being told to memorize anything.

Question 4

The generation effect holds that generating an answer from memory — even an initially incorrect answer — produces stronger encoding than simply reading the correct answer.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

Generation forces the learner to engage in retrieval-like processing during encoding — the same cognitive effort required to retrieve the memory later. Even incorrect initial attempts strengthen encoding because the error and the correction must both be processed meaningfully. This is why practice testing and retrieval practice consistently outperform re-reading in the experimental literature, and why feedback on incorrect answers is especially valuable rather than harmful.

Question 5

Why does interleaving different topics during study produce better long-term retention than blocking practice on a single topic, even though interleaving feels harder and produces slower initial learning?

Model answer: Blocking practice allows the learner to ride momentum within a single topic, using the same approach repeatedly without having to reconstruct the relevant schema from scratch. Interleaving forces the learner to retrieve and re-activate the appropriate schema for each problem before attempting it — a cognitively demanding process that strengthens both the schema itself and the ability to discriminate between similar problems. The difficulty is the mechanism, not a side effect: the brain allocates more encoding resources to information it must work to retrieve.

This is a case where subjective difficulty and learning are positively correlated — the opposite of what learners usually assume. 'Desirable difficulties' (Bjork's term) are conditions that slow initial acquisition but enhance long-term retention and transfer. Students and teachers alike tend to optimize for fluency during practice, which feels like learning but often isn't. Interleaving, spaced repetition, and retrieval practice all work by making practice harder in ways that mirror the conditions of later recall.