Levels of Processing Lab Report
Directions:
Your task in this lab session is to provide a brief write-up of the Levels of Processing experiment
that we just completed. You will be drafting parts of an APA style laboratory report. As such
your answers to the questions should be in paragraph form with complete sentences, including
proper grammar and spelling. Your text has an entire chapter devoted to APA style, but we will
just start to touch on it now.
Today you will:
1. Each person will score someone else’s (a group member’s) data. The group leader will report
your data (without names) to the instructor (computer overhead).
2. Read about the levels of processing theory Craik and Lockhart (1972). Explain the theory and
relate it to the task we did today (Kantowitz pp. 274-276).
3. Each group will build a lab report by answering the questions (in paragraph form) using the
lab report template (below). You need not answer the question in the exact order I have them, but
the order is designed to help you include everything and guide your organization. Remember the
lab is over and should be talked about in the PAST TENSE.
4. Each person must turn in their data sheets (stapled) with their name on it. Each group will turn
in the finalized printed lab report for your group.
Title
The title should be descriptive of the study that was done. We studied memory for word lists as a
function of depth of processing right? Create a title that reflects that.
Authors
Your names
Introduction
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
What is the levels of processing theory?
Who developed the theory and what do they have to say about it?
What does it predict about long-term memory performance?
Does it make any predictions about short-term memory?
Is there previous research to support the theory?
What was the purpose of the lab today?
What was the research question?
What does the theory say should happen when some words are processed deeply and
others are processed at a more shallow level?
9. What did you expect (based on the theory, not your beliefs beforehand) to happen
between the deep and shallow task for – immediate recall, delayed recall and recognition.
That is, what is/are the hypotheses of this study.
Methods
Participants
1. Who were the participants in the study?
2. How many males / females?
3. Why did they participate?
Procedures
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What happened during the study?
What were the stimuli used and how were they presented
What were the participant’s tasks?
What were the 3 DVs and how are they operationalized?
Was the delayed recall and regognition task something participants were told about
before the study?
6. What was the IV and how is it operationalized?
7. Describe how the IV is done. Is this a between or within subjects design? Is this a
correlational or experimental study?
8. What was the order timing employed for gathering each DV
Results
1.
2.
report the means and standard deviations for each DV broken down by the IV.
For each DV, is the difference between the means for the “hello” and repeat tasks
(levels of the IV) reliably different? Report the t-test observed value for each DV and
say if the value is significant.
a. Did subjects recall more words from the “hello” task than the repeat task for
immediate recall? What is your evidence (t-test result).
b. Did subjects recall more words from the “hello” task than the repeat task for
delayed recall? What is your evidence (t-test result)
c. Did subjects recall more words from the “hello” task than the repeat task on the
recognition task? What is your evidence (t-test result)
Discussion
1. Given the results you reported above, does this study provide more support for the levels
of processing theory? If so, what is that support? If not, what suggests a lack of support
2. What further research might be useful to further clarify your support / lack thereof?
3. What limitations to this study, your results might you want to note.