Levels of Processing
The brain or the mind of a human being is one of the most sophisticated organs in a human body, and it helps in understanding things and stores memories. Memory is defined as the result of how long a person processing information that one is exposed to (Cermak & Craik, 2014). The brain handles memories differently, which is influenced by how long one is exposed to stimuli, and the depth concentration one puts in the processing information. The level of depth that one set in processing the data results in short-term or long-term memory.
There are two levels of memory processing, which are shallow processing and deep processing. The shallow processing involves structural processing where the memory is based on the physical appearance of the stimuli, for example, the shape of the typeface of a letter (Cermak & Craik, 2014). Also, shallow processing involves phonemic processing, where the memory of a stimulus is based on how it sounds. The phonemic processing keeps the shallow memory of how something sounds like, and hearing the sound triggers their memory.
The other level of processing is the deep processing which involves semantic processing. Semantic processing consists of getting a deeper meaning of something done by being exposed to a stimulus for a long time (Cermak & Craik, 2014). For this type of processing, one gets the structural, phonemic, and semantic aspects of the stimuli, resulting in long-term memories. Deep processing enables one to relate one thing to the other, which enhances the recalling ability.
From an experiment that involved words, the participants had to look at the words and memorize them. At the end of the experiment, it was discovered that the participants recalled almost words that they had semantically processed as compared to those that they had structurally and phonemically processed. From the experiment, it was clear that human beings tend to easily remember the stimulus that they took longer to process than those that were shallowly processed.
In conclusion, to easily remember things, they need to take time to process them as the more time one spends on stimulus, the easier it becomes to remember all its aspects and features. The more one is exposed and investigates something, the more they understand and remember it.
Reference
Cermak, L. S., & Craik, F. I. (2014). Levels of processing in human memory (PLE: Memory). Psychology Press.