The assumption that people exert considerable cognitive effort in processing incoming information has been complemented in recent years by the idea that people often perform tasks and make decisions after only minimal information processing. Although both the heuristic and systematic conceptualizations of information processing share the assumption that a primary motivation in a persuasion setting is to assess the validity of the conclusion, they differ in their portrayal of how this task is performed. Much of the recent research in persuasion has been guided by the systematic model. The heuristic model is novel in its explicit cognitive focus on the mediational role of simple schemas or cognitive heuristics that people have presumably developed. It is likely that a variety of simple decision rules may sometimes mediate the persuasive impact of communicator variables, including communicator characteristics, amount of persuasive argumentation, or argument quality. Since heuristic processing is relatively effortless, while systematic processing is effortful, it is likely that heuristic processing may predominate in many persuasion settings. Research generally supports the heuristic/systematic framework. Studies are currently underway in which priming tasks are employed to increase the likelihood that a heuristic process will be activated in a subsequent persuasion setting. (JAC)