Transfer-appropriate Processing - History: The Beginnings

History: The Beginnings

• Dr. Fergus I. M. Craik was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on April 17, 1935. Craik is one of the leading psychologists behind the idea of memory. After attending medical school at the age of 18, Craik found that that was not his true passion. He dropped out of medical school and started studying psychology. He became interested in memory because it was his thesis for graduate school at the University of Liverpool in 1960. Craik’s work is heavily influenced by Dr. Treisman’s work with information processing. After moving to Toronto, he started working on his now famous paper with Dr. Bob Lockhart explaining “Levels of Processing.” Craik went on to work with Dr. Endel Tulving also.

• Dr. Endel Tulving was born in Estonia on May 26, 1927. At the age of 17, Tulving knew he was interested in pursuing psychology, especially the area of mind and behavior. In 1949, he went to study psychology at the University of Toronto. Tulving went on to gain his PhD from Harvard University after receiving his Honor’s and Master’s degrees in psychology at the University of Toronto. After Harvard, Tulving went back to teach at the University of Toronto. It was there that he met and made history with Craik for their work with memory.

In 1972, Fergus I. M. Craik and Robert S. Lockhart completed studies that went against the idea of multistore theories and were in favor of levels of processing when it comes to the human memory. Craik and Lockhart’s studies were some of the first studies completed dealing with Transfer-Appropriate Processing, which is now popular because of their ideas. Craik and Lockhart explained that the theory of multistore had very little evidence when it came to capacity, coding and retention. Instead, they proposed that memory involves level of processing. They concluded that we are always building from what we already know through our senses, patterns, and stimulus. Craik and Lockhart completed 10 experiments where participants processed different words by answering questions about them. Depending on the word, the response could be shallow or deep. After this section of the experiment was complete, participants were asked to randomly recall words. They were able to conclude that participants remembered positive and deeper responses more easily. Next, Craik continued his work with Endel Tulving in 1975. They tested subjects individually for perception and speed. Participants had a word revealed to them for 200 ms. through a tachistoscope. Before exposure, questions were asked about the word. These questions were meant to create shallow or deep reactions about the words for the participants. After this was complete, the participants were then asked questions about the words. After these random questions, the participants were asked to recall the words. It was assumed that deeper level questions would be recalled more often. Through four separate experiments, Craik and Tulving found this to be true.