[Effects of levels-of-processing on retention of target and nontarget words in a selective attention task].
Effects of levels-of-processing on retention of visually presented target and nontarget letter words were studied in relation to the amount of processing resources expended on the attended task. Attention was directed to targets by the shadowing. Targets and nontargets were distinguished by sensorial or semantic attributes. Processing resources expended were measured by reaction time at an auditory signal during the shadowing. Experiment I, with 20 subjects, showed that recall rate of targets and nontargets was higher and the expended resources were greater, in semantic than in sensorial processing. However, in Experiment II, with 48 subjects, the task difficulty was balanced with respect to shadowing errors and the expended resources were found no more different with different levels-of-processing, while d' measures of targets and nontargets were greater in semantic than in sensorial condition. It was concluded that the effects of levels-of-processing depended not on the resources expended, but on discriminative attributes.
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D003118:Color Perception; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D012677:Sensation; D014796:Visual Perception