Cognitive Psychology: Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience, 3rd Edition

174 • CHAPTER 7 Long-Term Memory: Encoding and Retrieval

LEVELS-OF-PROCESSING THEORY

In 1972 Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart proposed the idea of levels of processing

(LOP). According to levels-of-processing theory, memory depends on how information

is encoded, with “deeper” processing resulting in better encoding and retrieval than

“shallow” processing. In other words, memory depends on how information is pro-

grammed into the mind.

The Basics of Levels of Processing According to levels-of-processing theory, depth

of processing is determined by the nature of the task during encoding. The following

demonstration illustrates how different tasks affects memory for a list of words.

DEMONSTRATION Remembering Lists

Part 1. Cover the list below and then uncover each word one by one. Your task is to count the

number of vowels in each word and then go right on to the next one. Once you get to the end

of the list, cover it and follow the instructions at the end of the list.

chair

mathematics

elephant

lamp

car

elevator

thoughtful

cactus

Instructions: Count backward by 3s from 100. When you get to 76, write down the words

you remember. Do that now.

Part 2. Cover the list below and uncover each word one by one as you did in the previous part.

This time, visualize how useful the item might be if you were stranded on an uninhabited island.

When you get to the end of the list, follow the instructions.

umbrella

exercise

forgiveness

rock

hamburger

sunlight

coff ee

bottle

Instructions: Count backward by 3s from 99. When you reach 75, write down the words you

remember. Do that now.

Which procedure resulted in better memory, counting the number of vowels or visu-

alizing an item’s function? Most of the experiments that have asked this kind of ques-

tion have found that memory is superior when a meaningful connection has been made

between an item and something else. Thus, memory for words is better when the words

are processed by relating them to other knowledge, such as how useful an object might be

on an uninhabited island, than when processed based on a nonmeaningful characteristic

such as the number of vowels. Craik and Lockhart’s levels-of-processing theory states

that memory depends on the depth of processing that an item receives. They describe

depth of processing by distinguishing between shallow processing and deep processing.

Shallow processing involves little attention to meaning. Shallow processing occurs

when attention is focused on physical features, such as whether a word is printed in

Levels of

Processing

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