Investigating the Levels of Processing Theory

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AS – Level Psychology Coursework

Investigating the Levels of Processing Theory:

Examining the relationship between how deeply words are processed and how well they can later be recalled.


AS-Level Psychology Coursework

Introduction

For my Psychology AS Level coursework I will be investigating the Levels of Processing model of memory. This model looks at how we process information – unlike other models such as (Atkinson and Shiffrin’s) which focus on the storage systems of memory. The theory was put forward by Craik and Lockhart, who suggested that the deeper we process information, the better it is remembered. How deep we process information depends on the way we rehearse it before being stored.

A study by Craik and Tulving (1975) was conducted to provide evidence for this theory. They selected a random group of participants and gave each the same set of 60 words, each with a question. The question referring to each word was of one of three categories:

Shallow physical processing - The case of the word e.g.

Does this word appear in capitals?                                        DOOR

Moderate acoustic processing - The sound of the word e.g.

Does this word rhyme with cat?                                                Cheese

Or Deep semantic processing - The meaning of the word e.g.

Can you cook with _____?                                                        Leaves

After the participants had answered the questions they were surprised with a list of 180 words, and were asked to tick those they’d seen in the previous set.  The results were as follows.

Physical processing: 17% of target words remembered

Acoustic processing: 37% of target words remembered

Semantic processing: 65% of target words remembered

This research clearly showed that the encoding of the question affected how well the words were recalled. According to Craik and Lockhart, this is because the deeper processing creates a more durable and deeper memory trace, which means information can be remembered more easily.

In this study the independent variable (IV) was the type of question asked, while the dependant variable (DV) was the percentage of words remembered for the type of question.

I will be using the same IV & DV in my research but the experiment will be conducted in a different way. This will see how well Craik & Tulving’s work, as well as the Levels of processing theory can be supported empirically. I will make my study simpler by only using two categories of questions – either the physical processing or the semantic processing. 10 participants will be assigned to each type of processing – I will use independent groups as my design. Also, unlike Craik and Tulving, I will read the P’s each word and they will only be given one question that applies to each of the 20 words I will use. They will then have to recall as many as possible from the first part of the experiment, but will not be given a word list like P’s in Craik and Tulving’s study – they will simply have to list those they can remember. Although my study will be different to that by Craik and Tulving, to see how clear the differences in recollections are, my objective will still be the same – to test how well information is remembered according to the way it is processing in memory.

As explained earlier, I will only use two forms of encoding in the questions – either physical or semantic. I will give each participant a question and read them 20 words, which they should rate on an answer sheet according to the question. I will then take away their ratings and ask them to recall as many words as they can.

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My experimental hypothesis is:

‘It is predicted that Ps will recall more words from the list with associated questions related to the meaning of the word (deep processing) than from the list with associated questions related to the case of the word (shallow processing).’

My null hypothesis is:

‘It is predicted that there will be no difference in the recollections of words from the list with associated questions related to the meaning of the word (deep processing) than from the list with associated questions related to the case of the word (shallow processing).’

Method

Design ...

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