Craik and Lockhart’s 1972 framework reframed memory from a question of where (short-term store vs long-term store) to a question of how (shallow processing vs deep). The same information encoded at different depths produced dramatically different retention.
Deep processing means semantic elaboration: what does this relate to? How does it differ? What would contradict it? Shallow processing means surface features: how does it look, sound, feel?
Fluera’s multimodal encoding stacks deep processing channels. A handwritten node is simultaneously semantic (you chose the words), spatial (you chose the position), visual (you chose the colour), relational (you drew the connections), and motor (you moved your hand). Seven encoding channels active at once, where a typed note activates one.