During the late 1800’s a new science was emerging in Europe. Psychology’s rootscan be traced back to Germany and a man by the name of William Wunt. FollowingWunt other psychologists began emerging in different fields. Of these pioneersHerman Ebbinghaus was one, and his field of study was memory. He performed thefirst experiments in 1885 in Germany and the following is a background on theman and his field. Herman Ebbinghaus was born in 1850 in Germany and died therein 1909.
He received his formal education at the Universities of Bonn, Halle,and Berlin (Gale, 1996). Ebbinghaus received degrees in philosophy and historyfrom these universities (Gale, 1996). Ebbinghaus went on to teach at theUniversities of Berlin, Poland, Breslaw and Halle (Gale, 1996). Theseexperiences combined with later experiences with memory combine to giveEbbinghaus a curiosity about memory greater than most of his time. Memory can bedefined as your amount of learning or your stored information.
The process ofstoring and retreving information from the brain that is central to learning andthinking (Microsoft Encarta, [MSE], 1997). According to Myers (1998) memory is”any indication that learning has persisted over time”. There are alsofour types of memory classified: recollection, recall, recognition, andrelearning. Recollection is the reconstruction of facts based on clues thatserve as reminders; recall is the active remembering of something from the pastwithout help; recognition is the ability to identify previous stimuli asfamiliar; relearning is material that seems to be easier to remember than othersas if it has been learned before (MSE, 1997). These four types of memorytogether help all people to remember anything from the states’ capitals to yourbest friends birthday party from second grade.
Some researchers say that thereare specific sites dedicated to memory while others say that all the brain workstogether (MSE, 1997). There are tests to determine memory in individuals thatEbbinghaus Ebbinghaus 3 himself developed and will be discussed later. One testthat does involve memory in a way would be the IQ test developed to testchildrens level of intelligence which in turn depends on how much the childremembers. Ebbinghaus served in the Franco-Prussian War then seven years afterthat, decided to tutor in England, France and Berlin (Gale, 1996). It was duringthis time that Ebbinghaus became interested in memory and began to wonder howmemory worked (Gale, 1996).
In the journal of Physiological Psychology WilliamWunt said that a test on memory could not be performed (Gale, 1996). Afterreading this Ebbinghaus decided that he would try and test memory himself. Armedwith his curiosity and his knowledge of memory from tutoring Ebbinghaus beganthe tests. He used the same mathematical treatment that Gustav Fechner used inElements of Psychophysics to try and test memory experimentally (Gale, 1996). Ebbinghaus decided to be the subject and the experimenter in this test so hemade a list of nonsense syllables that he would memorize (Myers, 1998). Hecrated 2,300 one syllable consonant-vowel-consonant combinations to make hisstudy easier (Gale, 1996).
He made words such as taz, bok, lef so that he couldtest the memorization rather than his previous knowledge of the words. Hedivided the material into lists that he memorized in different conditions (Gale,1996). He measured them at night, in the day, when he was tired, just gotten up,etc. He recorded the average time it took him to memorize the lists perfectlythen altared the test (Gale 1996). According to Gale (1996) he made observationsabout ther effects of such variables as speed, list length, and number ofrepetitions. Ebbinghaus also wanted to test long term and short term memoryretention.
He compared the time it took him to memorize any list once with theammount of time it took him to memorize the same list again (Gale, 1996). Healso measured immediate Ebbinghaus 4 memory showing that he remembered about sixto eight items off his list after one look (Gale, 1996). Ebbinghaus in testingmemory wanted to know how much he still knew from his lists later. According toMyers (1998) he would test himself on the same material thirty minutes to thirtydays after his initial test.
Using the mathematical methods mentioned earlier hecame up with a retention curve showing how much of the information he was ableto retrieve the next day. This figure can be seen on the attatched sheet, Figure9. 3. Ebbinghaus discovered that the longer he repeated the list on the first daythe more he remembered on the second day when he was trying to recall theinformation (Myers, 1998). Here is where the principle “The amountremembered depends on the time spent learning” stems from (Myers 1998). Ebbinghaus didn’t always remember what he learned though.
The amount he forgotcan be seen his forgetting curve (see attached sheet) Figure 9. 13. Ebbinghaustested himself up to thirty days after the inital remembering and graphed whathe remembered then (Myers, 1998). The results show that as time increasedpercentage remembered decreases (Myers, 1998). Ebbinghaus did distinguish thatnonsense information is more easily forgotten then everyday material.
Accordingto Gale (1996) Ebinghaus tested himself on 420 lists of 16 syllables 340 timeseach, making 14,280 trials. Ebbinghaus studied learning rates for meaningful andmeaningless material concluding that meaningful items such as sentences andwords could be learned much more efficiently than nonsense syllables (Gale,1996). As a result of Ebbinghaus’ work more about memory is now known. It isbetter to evenly space memorization rather than memorize it all at once (Gale,1996). Despite Wunt’s disagreement many still use Ebbinghaus’ work on memory asa model for research on human memory (Gale, 1996).
Ebbinghaus also developed atest for memory in 1894 while studying the mental capacities of children hedeveloped a sentence completion test that is still used today to measureintelligence (Gale, 1996). This was the Ebbinghaus 5 first successful test ofmental ability (Gale, 1996). Ebbinghaus was the cofounder of the first Germanpsychology journal, the Journal of Psychology and Physiology of the Sense Organsin 1890 and wrote two text books: The Principles of Psychology(1902) and ASummary of Psychology (1908). BibliographyBeer, Colin G. (1993).
“Psychology, Experimental”. EncartaEncyclopedia. 1998. Microsoft Corperation.
(1993-1998). “EducationalPsychology”. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Microsoft Corperation. (1993-1998).
“Memory and Mental Processes”. Microsoft EncartaEncyclopedia. Myers, David. (1998). Psychology.
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