There once was a young boy named Felix, who lived in a small town near Atlanta. Felix really liked fishing, and he fished almost everyday at his hometown lake. 

Felix was a really determined fisherman! He had learned, through the use of acoustic encoding, that summer was one of the best times to catch a personal best! Acoustic encoding is the use of auditory stimuli or hearing to implant memories into the brain.

So Felix decided to find out more, since he really wanted to catch a big one! He used effortful processing, which is how we store our facts that we want to remember, to learn different summertime bass techniques and tactics. He stored these tactics in his Short term memory, to be used later on the lake when he needed them!

So early the next morning, Felix woke up and walked to the lake. He was determined to catch the biggest bass of his life! Once he got to the lake, he tried his best not to make a sound. He was ready to use the explicit memories, or the facts he learned yesterday, in action.

Suddenly, after around 30 minutes, Felix hooked a giant!! It was surely the biggest bass of his life!! He jumped, and made ripples everywhere he went. Suddenly, Felix senses something is not right. He jerks the rod back to make sure he was hooked, and pop! The fish has snapped his line. 

Poor Felix! That devastating experience surely was not going to leave his long term memory. This makes Felix hungry for more knowledge because he wants to catch the big one. So Felix heads back home to do more research. 

Felix began his research. He started researching weather conditions, different times, different spots to fish, different lure colors, etc. The thing that was most important was the different lure type. He used visual encoding, the process by which we remember visual shapes, to make sure he knew what to buy at the store later today. He also was able to use semantic encoding, a specific type of encoding in which the meaning of something is encoded as opposed to the sound or vision of it, to know the meaning of these lures and what they do. He found some new things that contrasted his general knowledge. This kicked in his proactive interference, or the effect of previously learned materials on the retrieval and acquisition of new material.

Once Felix and his dad got to the store, he knew exactly what to buy and where to find it. Because of automatic processing, our unconscious encoding of incidental information, he knew exactly where to find his lures too.