Levels of processing: A critique

The theoretical approach to problems of memory proposed by Craik & Lockhart (1972) is evaluated critically. Their conceptual framework has the advantage of directing attention to mental events and processes, but there are several difficulties. They suggested that retentivity is a function of the depth and spread of processing, but there are no suitable criteria available for indexing either the depth or the spread of encoding. Furthermore, encoding depth and spread appear to affect the retrieval component of recall, but are largely irrelevant to the determination of retrieval strategies and to the decision component involved in recall and in recognition.