Hermann Ebbinghaus
Hermann Ebbinghaus
Hermann Ebbinghauswas a German psychologist who pioneered the experimental study of memory, and is known for his discovery of the forgetting curve and the spacing effect. He was also the first person to describe the learning curve. He was the father of the eminent neo-Kantian philosopher Julius Ebbinghaus...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPsychologist
Date of Birth24 January 1850
CountryGermany
alphabet certain eleven placed sort vowel
Out of the simple consonants of the alphabet and our eleven vowels and diphthongs all possible syllables of a certain sort were constructed, a vowel sound being placed between two consonants.
aim carried impress means repeated separate series syllable tests
The aim of the tests carried on with these syllable series was, by means of repeated audible perusal of the separate series, to so impress them that immediately afterward they could voluntarily be reproduced.
again altogether force himself impress knows rules
The school-boy doesn't force himself to learn his vocabularies and rules altogether at night, but knows that be must impress them again in the morning.
careful committing continued difference greater memory soon
If the first committing to memory is a very careful and long continued one, the difference will be greater than if it is desultory and soon abandoned.
chance construct drawn formed material mixed series several time
These syllables, about 2,300 in number, were mixed together and then drawn out by chance and used to construct series of different lengths, several of which each time formed the material for a test.
calls hearing learning muscle organs sensory three
The learning of the syllables calls into play the three sensory fields, sight, hearing and the muscle sense of the organs of speech.
heart needs amplification
The relation of repetitions for learning and for repeating English stanzas needs no amplification. These were learned by heart on the first day with less than half of the repetitions necessary for the shortest of the syllable series.
past long psychology
Psychology has a long past, but only a short history.
memories connections facts
Meanwhile the fact that the connection with the activity of memory in ordinary life is for the moment lost is of less importance than the reverse, namely, that this connection with the complications and fluctuations of life is necessarily still a too close one.
heart years effort
A poem is learned by heart and then not again repeated. We will suppose that after a half year it has been forgotten: no effort of recollection is able to call it back again into consciousness.
ideas perception degrees
Sensorial perception, for example, certainly occurs with greater or less accuracy according to the degree of interest; it is constantly given other directions by the change of external stimuli and by ideas.
events caprice flux
The constant flux and caprice of mental events do not admit of the establishment of stable experimental conditions.
ideas feelings kind
Mental states of every kind, - sensations, feelings, ideas, - which were at one time present in consciousness and then have disappeared from it, have not with their disappearance absolutely ceased to exist.
needs may consciousness
One needs but to say that, in the case of an unfamiliar sequence of syllables, only about seven can be grasped in one act, but that with frequent repetition and gradually increasing familiarity with the series this capacity of consciousness may be increased