Hi, this is Ray.

I want to start with a piece of research that I think should be more famous than it is. In 1975, cognitive psychologists Fergus Craik and Endel Tulving ran an experiment that produced numbers so striking I initially assumed I was misreading them. They gave participants a list of words. For some of the words, they asked participants to notice something structural… like whether the word was in uppercase. For others, they asked something phonemic (like whether the word rhymed with another. For others, they asked something semantic) like whether the word fit meaningfully into a sentence context.

Then they tested recall. According to summaries of this research, recall performance was significantly higher for semantic processing (around 65-80% recall rates) compared to phonemic (around 35-50%) or structural tasks (around 15-20%), illustrating that deeper semantic engagement leads to superior memory retention without explicit intent to memorize. Read those numbers. Same words. Same amount of exposure time. Same participants. The people who engaged with the meaning of the words remembered them at three to four times the rate of the people who engaged only with the surface features. And this happened WITHOUT anyone even trying to memorize the words. The depth of engagement alone produced the retention difference.

I want you to sit with this finding for a moment. Because it points at something that changes how I now think about studying, and how I wish I'd understood it when I was in college. Most of what most students do when they "study" is closer to the structural or phonemic conditions than the semantic condition. Rereading. Highlighting. Passive listening. Copying notes verbatim. These are all forms of shallow engagement with material. They feel like studying because they consume study time. They produce something closer to the 15-20% retention rate than the 65-80% rate. The hours spent aren't determining the outcome. The depth of engagement is.

Today's newsletter is about that. What the research actually shows about depth of processing versus duration of study, why detailed engagement with material produces dramatically better retention than more time spent, and how to actually study in ways that produce deep encoding instead of just producing the feeling of having studied. Let's get into it.

Onboarding, offboarding, role changes, leave—every employee lifecycle moment requires HR and IT to move together. When they don't, people fall through the cracks. Access delays mount. Compliance risk creeps in.

This guide gives HR and IT leaders a practical communication framework to close the gaps, standardize handoffs, and keep the employee experience seamless from day one to last day. Free download—built for ops teams that need it to actually work.

Let me start with the theoretical framework, because it's genuinely one of the most important concepts in cognitive psychology and shockingly few learners know about it.

In 1972, Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart proposed what they called the "levels of processing" framework. The idea: memory isn't determined by how much you rehearse material. It's determined by how DEEPLY you process it. Deep processing produces durable memory. Shallow processing produces fragile memory that fades quickly. According to a summary of the framework, deep processing depends on elaborative rehearsal: the active transformation of material to make it more meaningful. This goes beyond simple repetition. The learner expands on the information by constructing mental images, identifying logical connections, or linking new content to prior knowledge. The word that matters most here is "transformation." Deep processing isn't just paying more attention. It's actively transforming the material into something more meaningful in your existing knowledge structure.

The framework has held up remarkably well across fifty years of subsequent research. According to a 2024 study on levels-of-processing and forgetting, deep processing (e.g., conceptual, semantic or associative involvement) triggers a richer and more elaborate memory trace or neural network than shallow coding. This greater richness or elaboration is assumed to support subsequent retrieval success. In addition, the deeply encoded information is more likely to be integrated with the person's existing knowledge structures, which in turn serves as a more effective approach for reconstructive retrieval processes. The mechanism is worth understanding. Deep processing doesn't just create stronger memories… it creates memories that are more connected to everything else you know, which means they have more retrieval pathways leading back to them. Shallow memories exist in isolation. Deep memories exist within a network.

The specific technique that operationalizes deep processing is called elaborative encoding. According to research on the topic, elaborative encoding is a memory strategy in which new information is actively linked to existing knowledge, experiences, or schemas to create meaningful connections that enhance retention and recall. This process contrasts with maintenance rehearsal, which involves simple repetition, by promoting deeper semantic processing that enriches memory traces. The learner isn't just receiving the information. They're actively working to connect it to what they already know. The connection work is what produces the durable memory. Without it, the material stays isolated and fades.

Here's where I want to distinguish what the research means by "detail" from what most learners think it means. Being detailed when studying doesn't mean writing down every word from a lecture. It doesn't mean spending more hours on the same passive activities. It doesn't mean highlighting more colors. It means engaging with each piece of material at a deeper level than surface awareness.

Specifically, being detailed means doing several things during study that most learners skip:

Asking why. For every claim, asking why it's true. According to research on elaborative interrogation, asking learners to explain why facts are true improves recall. This method builds links between new and current knowledge. The "why" question forces you into deeper engagement with material than passive reception can produce. When you can't answer why, you've identified something you don't actually understand… which is much more valuable than assuming you understood because the words looked familiar.

Making connections to what you already know. Every new concept should be actively linked to something already in your knowledge. What does this remind you of? What field have you encountered this in before? How does this fit with things you learned elsewhere? These connection questions transform new material from isolated data points into integrated understanding.

Generating examples. Can you come up with your own example that illustrates the concept? Not the one in the book… your own. If you can't, you don't understand it yet. If you can, you've done the cognitive work that produces deep encoding. This is closer to what happens when Mario picks up a Fire Flower… the abstract power only becomes useful when he actually starts throwing fireballs. The generation is the mechanism.

Articulating in your own words. Can you explain the concept without using the exact words of the source? If you can only regurgitate the textbook's wording, you've achieved shallow processing. If you can restate it in your own terms, you've done deep processing.

Noticing specific features. What's specifically important about this? What's the precise mechanism? What are the exact conditions? What's the specific difference between this and the related concept? The precision of your engagement determines the precision of your understanding.

Comparing and contrasting. How is this different from other things in the same category? What makes this specifically THIS thing rather than something else? The comparison work reveals what's distinctive about the material and produces deeper encoding than any single-concept engagement can.

Here's the honest part. A lot of learners respond to poor retention by just studying more. More hours. More reviews. More rereads. This intuition is wrong in a specific way that the research has been clear about for decades.

If your baseline engagement is at the 15-20% retention level (shallow processing), doubling your hours doesn't move you to 40%. It moves you to something closer to 20-25%. The ceiling of what shallow processing can produce is low, and no amount of time invested in shallow processing pushes you above that ceiling. You're multiplying your hours by a small factor.

Meanwhile, the same time invested in deep processing can produce the 65-80% retention rate. This means an hour of deep engagement can produce more durable learning than three hours of shallow engagement. Not because the hour was longer or harder in duration terms, but because the depth of engagement changes what happens neurologically during encoding. Different quality of processing produces different quality of memory.

This has practical implications that most study advice misses. The learner who studies for six hours with shallow techniques often retains less than the learner who studies for two hours with deep techniques. Same subject. Same material. Wildly different outcomes because the engagement depth was different. The Kingdom Hearts principle applies… Sora doesn't level up by grinding random monsters, he levels up by engaging with challenging content that requires real skill. Same for you. Grinding shallow doesn't produce the levels grinding deep does.

Okay, the practical part. Based on the research and my own experimentation, here are the specific techniques that produce deep processing rather than shallow processing.

Read once, then engage. Instead of rereading passively, read a section once, then close the material and force yourself to engage actively. What did that mean? What connects to what I already know? What would I want to remember? The active engagement after the initial reading is where the deep processing happens.

Ask elaborative questions. For every important concept, ask yourself: Why is this true? How does this work? When would this apply? What would a counterexample look like? These questions can't be answered without deep engagement, and answering them produces the deep encoding that makes memory durable.

Generate rather than consume. Whenever possible, generate examples, restatements, connections, and questions rather than just receiving them from the material. The research on the generation effect is clear that material you produce yourself is remembered better than material you only received. Your own examples are more valuable than the textbook's examples for your own retention.

Explain to an imaginary student. This is a version of the Feynman technique. Pretend you're teaching the concept to someone who doesn't know it. What would you say? What examples would you use? What analogies would you draw? Where would they likely get confused? This forced teaching perspective produces deep engagement with the structure of the material.

Notice specific details deliberately. When reading or studying, actively look for the precise mechanisms, exact conditions, specific distinctions. What's the actual pathway? What are the specific variables? What's the exact difference between this and the related concept? The precision-seeking is itself the deep processing.

Connect within and across subjects. Deliberately look for connections between what you're studying now and what you've studied before… both within the same subject and across different domains. These cross-connections produce integration that isolated study can't.

Take notes in your own words. Don't copy sentences verbatim. Force yourself to restate what you're learning in your own language. The translation work IS the deep processing. If you can't restate it, you haven't understood it yet.

Use retrieval practice. As I've covered in previous newsletters, testing yourself on material produces deeper encoding than reviewing it. But specifically, use retrieval as a way to identify what you don't understand deeply enough. When you can't retrieve something, that's a signal to return to the material and engage more deeply.

Study specific things you don't yet understand. The temptation is to review material you already know because it feels productive. Actually productive study focuses on what you don't yet understand deeply. Identify the specific parts that resist you and work them until they don't.

Let me name the specific patterns that produce shallow processing, because avoiding them is half the battle.

Rereading without engagement. Just running your eyes over the same material multiple times. The material becomes familiar without becoming understood.

Highlighting extensively. Highlighting feels productive but produces shallow processing. The choice to highlight is fast, and the highlighted text often doesn't get returned to with any depth.

Copying notes verbatim. Writing exactly what the professor said or the book wrote. No transformation happens. No deep processing occurs. You've just moved words from one place to another.

Passive listening. Attending lectures without actively engaging with the material. Your ears process the sounds but your mind doesn't process the concepts deeply.

Cramming. Trying to compress material into short time windows. This doesn't allow the time for the elaborative work that produces deep processing. Cramming produces surface familiarity, not durable knowledge.

Studying while distracted. Splitting attention across your material and something else. Deep processing requires full attention. Splitting attention forces shallow engagement by definition.

Here's what I want you to take from all this. The framing of "more time studying" as the answer to poor retention is one of the most damaging misconceptions in learning. The variable that actually matters is depth of engagement, not duration. A learner who studies deeply for shorter periods usually retains more than a learner who studies shallowly for longer periods.

This is genuinely good news if you take it seriously. It means you can produce dramatically better learning outcomes without spending more time. You just have to change what you're doing during the time you already spend. The shift from shallow to deep processing is available to any learner willing to make it. It doesn't require special talent, expensive tools, or dramatic lifestyle changes. It requires changing what you do during study from passive reception to active engagement.

If you've been putting in hours of study time and feeling like the retention isn't proportional to the effort, please consider that the issue probably isn't the effort. It's the depth. Same hours, deeper engagement, dramatically better outcomes. Try this on your next study session. Instead of rereading, actively engage. Ask why. Generate examples. Restate in your own words. Notice specific details. Make connections. See what happens to your retention over the following days.

The Craik and Tulving finding is one of the best-established results in cognitive psychology. Deep processing produces 3-4x better retention than shallow processing on the same material. This is available to you. It costs nothing except attention and engagement. Use it. In Persona 5, the difference between confidants who bring you real power and those who don't isn't time spent… it's depth of engagement with them. Your studying works the same way. Depth beats duration. Always has. The research just proves it.

Keep learning (and keep going deep),

Ray