The three levels of processing are Semantic processing, Phonetic (sound) processing and Structural (visual) processing. The first one is Semantic processing consists of few points which help are memory being better. Semantic processing is processing for meaning which involves understanding information or elaborative rehearsal. When you ask ‘What does this mean’ you consider its meaning you are involved in semantic or meaningful processing. This leads to the strongest memory trace. Number two is phonetic memory which involves maintenance rehearsal and processing for sound. Here language is involved as part of the recognition process. When you ask ‘what does it sound like’ and you consider the sound then you are involved in phonetic processing. The third and last process is structural processing which involves processes the visual features of objects e.g. size, shape, colour, height, upper/lower case etc. When you ask ‘what does it look like’ you are involved in this kind of processing which leads to the weakest memory trace.
Craik and Lockhart put forward an alternative to the multi-store model of memory, called the levels of processing theory. They argued that the concept of rehearsal is not sufficient to account for long –term memory, but later on Craik and Tulving conducted a series of experiments to provide support for the levels of processing theory. The research was again to demonstrate that memory is an automatic by-product of semantic processing. If information has more meaning, then it should more memorable. In one experiment, participants were shown a list of words (five lettered words – table) and asked a question for each. For each question the answer was ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
This experiment was criticised because the experiments lacked mundane realism, reductionism and ecological validity. Also, the theory is circular and descriptive rather than explanatory. Deep processing is not always best as it depends on the nature of the material and might be confusing effort with depth.
So overall by weighing up the strengths and weaknesses I can say that there was difficulty in measuring the different kinds of processing and so the depth of processing because for many of the orienting tasks used to test the theory, also the theory is largely descriptive not explanatory. The strengths are the experiments show that stresses the importance of the type of processing e.g. semantic, phonetic and structural on memory. The multi-store model stresses the role of acoustic rehearsal in memory. Also the levels of processing model can be applied to improving memory e.g. to help make information more memorable you can elaborate it, make it more distinctive and organise it better.
