An examination of individual differences in levels of processing

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present study examined individual differences in levels of processing. Participants completed a cued recall task in which they made either rhyme or semantic judgements on pairs of items. Pupillary responses during encoding were recorded as a measure of the allocation of attentional effort and participants completed multiple measures of working and long-term memory. The results suggested levels of processing effect in both accuracy and pupillary responses with deeper levels of processing demonstrating higher accuracy and larger pupillary responses than shallower levels of processing. Most participants demonstrated levels of processing effect, but there was substantial variability in the size of the effect. Variation in levels of processing was positively related to individual differences in long-term memory and the magnitude of the pupillary levels of processing effect, but not working memory. These results suggest that some of the variation in levels of processing is likely due to individual differences in the allocation of attentional effort (particularly to items processed deeply) during encoding.