1.7 levels of processing

early models of memory were thought to be limited because

• Memory capacity was shown to vary- depending on context, e.g. isolated words vs words in a sentence

• How information is encoded should depend on the type of information to be remembered

• The duration of memory traces depends on duration of presentation, interference, modality and pre-existing knowledge

• Simply being exposed to information repeatedly does not guarantee that it will be remembered

Shallow Processing includes

Structural: appearance or physical qualities, e.g. is the word written in capitals

Phonemic: encoding the sounds of a stimuli, e.g. does it rhyme with course

Deep Processing includes

Semantic: encoding the meaning, e.g. does It fit in the sentence

Elaboration: analysis that links information to images associations, organisations and connection to prior knowledge

Craik and Tulving (1975)

briefly presented common words (<200ms) to participants after priming them with one of three questions

• Is the words in capital letters? (structural)

• Does the word rhyme with weight? (phonemic)

• Does the word fit in the sentence; he met a ___ in the street? (semantic)

• They measured response times and accuracy of recognition (on a sheet of 60 target and 120 distractor words)

what did the results lead to?

Deeper levels of processing led to longer response times and more accurate recognition, i.e. a more elaborate memory trace