Lab

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Abstract

The experiment conducted regarding Memory Processes tested individuals on their ability to store and retrieve words. The levels on which words were stored were structural, the lowest level, phonetic, the next highest level, and semantic, the highest level of processing. The experiment is based on the recall and reorganization of the words from group they show during the experiment. The experiment conducted supported hypotheses regarding a subject’s performance on retrieving words at different levels. The independent variables were the encoding levels, and they manipulated the dependent variables by affecting the time in which a word could be received due to its placement on a processing level. This experiment was an extension of Craik and Lockharts Depth of Processing Model, that explored the effects of “deeper” processing by an individual, and the likely-hood that those words processed deeper were retrieved better.

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Introduction

In 1970, Craik and Lockhart proposed that there are different levels of processing a person uses while encoding information. Thus, they devised a model to represent these levels of processing called the Depth of Perception Model. In this lab, the levels of processing were based on a person’s ability to recall certain words according to the category in which they were presented to the subject. The three levels of these encoding categories were orthographic (structural) processing, or identified physical characteristics; phonetic processing, or the sound a word makes and that auditory relationship to other words; and semantic processing, or the representational meaning a word has when used in context with other words. Respectively, a word when recognized by the subjects passes first through orthographic processing, then phonetic processing, and finally semantic processing. According to Craik and Lockhart, when a word has gone through these three levels of encoding it is more likely to be stored and later retrieved than a word that has only gone through the first level of processing. This lab tested a subject’s ability to store, or hold learned information for later use, based on the three levels the word was possibly processed on. There were thirty-six words presented to each subject in the Psyk.Trek experiment. These words were process...

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... than basing an experiment on selected students with relatively the same ability, in the same college course, all participating for the same reasons. The internal validity in this experiment could have also been improved if serial positioning was included in the experimental data. Since serial positioning was important in the conduction of this lab, its lack of final representation was also a lack of internal validity. To further research on the topic of memory, not only can these faults be addressed, but also if words were repeated under the same encoding processes and then tested more than once, a better understanding of how effective each process is may be reached. Also different sections could be added to the experiment that called for the retrieval of a word on another level from which it was stored and on the same level it was stored. The reaction times it takes to process these words on different levels could prove as interesting data, either to support that a word is

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retrieved at the same time for the level on which it was stored, or that a word’s retrieval depends on its context, not the level at which it was stored.