Organisation: what levels of processing are levels of.

The psychology of thought and memory has historically been concerned with a struggle between associationism and its opponents. Organisation theory--in part an offspring of Gestalt concepts--has been the most successful and vocal of these contenders. The levels-of-processing framework has been a part of the effort to overcome associationist predilections. Aspects of principles of organisation and of the recent history of organisation theory are presented, followed by an analysis of the levels-of-processing approach in terms of organisational concepts.