Memory Levels of processing 

Craik & Lockhart proposed that it is the method & depth of processing that affects how an experience is stored in memory, rather than rehearsal.

• Organization - Mandler gave participants a pack of word cards & asked them to sort them into any number of piles using any body system of categorisation they liked. When they were later asked to recall as many of the words as they could, those who used more categories remembered more words. This study suggested that the act of organising information makes it more memorable.
• Distinctiveness - Eysenck & Eysenck asked participants to say words in a distinctive way, e.g. spell the words out loud. Such participants recalled the words better than those who simply read them off a list.
• Effort - Tyler et al. had participants solve a series of anagrams, some easy & some difficult . The participants recalled the difficult anagrams better, presumably because they put more effort into them.
• Elaboration - Palmere et al. gave participants descriptive paragraphs of a fictitious African nation. There were some short paragraphs & some with extra sentences elaborating the main idea. Recall was higher for the ideas in the elaborated paragraphs.