The Effect of Levels of Processing on the Retention of Words

The Effect of Levels of Processing on the Retention of Words AbstractThis experimental study investigates how the retention of words depends on the levels those words were processed of among Vilnius lyceum youth. The hypothesis made was that the best retention should be after semantic processing of a word, the least - after structural and the medium - after phonemic. In the first part of the experiment, 20 participants were asked 30 questions about 30 words (10 in each of the analysis groups: structural, phonemic, and semantic). In the second part, participants were asked to recall as many words (out of those 30) as they could. The results proved the hypothesis as the best retention (4.0 words recalled out of 10) was in fact a result of the semantic, or the deepest, analysis of a word. In case of phonemic analysis, 2.4 words out of 10 were recalled and in the case of structural - only 1.3 out of 10. These results are coherent with the previous study named "Depth of Processing and the Retention of Words in Episodic Memory", which was carried ou t by Fergus I. M. Craik and Endel Tulving.Z-tabelleIntroductionThe experiment I have chosen to replicate, named "Depth of Processing and the Retention of Words in Episodic Memory", was carried out by Fergus I. M. Craik and Endel Tulving in 1975. The aim of this experiment was to check the theory proposed by Craik and Lockhart in 1972, which stated that memory traits depend proportionally on the "depth" of processing, where depth refers to a greater degrees of semantic involvement.The experiment carried out by Craik and Tulving included 20 subjects, tested individually, who were sit in the front of the tachistoscope and each trial shown a different noun . Before the word was exposed, the subject was asked a question related to the word. Question was constructed...