FREE ESSAY ON EBBINGHAUS

EBBINGHAUS

Ebbinghaus 2 During the late 1800's a new science was emerging in Europe. Psychology's
roots can be traced back to Germany and a man by the name of William Wunt. Following Wunt
other psychologists began emerging in different fields. Of these pioneers Herman
Ebbinghaus was one, and his field of study was memory. He performed the first experiments
in 1885 in Germany and the following is a background on the man and his field. Herman
Ebbinghaus was born in 1850 in Germany and died there in 1909. He received his formal
education at the Universities of Bonn, Halle, and Berlin (Gale, 1996). Ebbinghaus
received degrees in philosophy and history from these universities (Gale, 1996).
Ebbinghaus went on to teach at the Universities of Berlin, Poland, Breslaw and Halle
(Gale, 1996). These experiences combined with later experiences with memory combine to
give Ebbinghaus a curiosity about memory greater than most of his time. Memory can be
defined as your amount of learning or your stored information. The process of storing and
retreving information from the brain that is central to learning and thinking (Microsoft
Encarta, [MSE], 1997). According to Myers (1998) memory is any indication that learning
has persisted over time. There are also four types of memory classified: recollection,
recall, recognition, and relearning. Recollection is the reconstruction of facts based on
clues that serve as reminders; recall is the active remembering of something from the
past without help; recognition is the ability to identify previous stimuli as familiar;
relearning is material that seems to be easier to remember than others as if it has been
learned before (MSE, 1997). These four types of memory together help all people to
remember anything from the states' capitals to your best friends birthday party from
second grade. Some researchers say that there are specific sites dedicated to memory
while others say that all the brain works together (MSE, 1997). There are tests to
determine memory in individuals that Ebbinghaus Ebbinghaus 3 himself developed and will
be discussed later. One test that does involve memory in a way would be the IQ test
developed to test childrens level of intelligence which in turn depends on how much the
child remembers. Ebbinghaus served in the Franco-Prussian War then seven years after
that, decided to tutor in England, France and Berlin (Gale, 1996). It was during this
time that Ebbinghaus became interested in memory and began to wonder how memory worked
(Gale, 1996). In the journal of Physiological Psychology William Wunt said that a test on
memory could not be performed (Gale, 1996). After reading this Ebbinghaus decided that he
would try and test memory himself. Armed with his curiosity and his knowledge of memory
from tutoring Ebbinghaus began the tests. He used the same mathematical treatment that
Gustav Fechner used in Elements of Psychophysics to try and test memory experimentally
(Gale, 1996). Ebbinghaus decided to be the subject and the experimenter in this test so
he made a list of nonsense syllables that he would memorize (Myers, 1998). He crated
2,300 one syllable consonant-vowel-consonant combinations to make his study easier (Gale,
1996). He made words such as taz, bok, lef so that he could test the memorization rather
than his previous knowledge of the words. He divided 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 perfectly then altared the test (Gale 1996). According to Gale (1996)
he made observations about ther effects of such variables as speed, list length, and
number of repetitions. Ebbinghaus also wanted to test long term and short term memory
retention. He compared the time it took him to memorize any list once with the ammount of
time it took him to memorize the same list again (Gale, 1996). He also measured immediate
Ebbinghaus 4 memory showing that he remembered about six to eight items off his list
after one look (Gale, 1996). Ebbinghaus in testing memory wanted to know how much he
still knew from his lists later. According to Myers (1998) he would test himself on the
same material thirty minutes to thirty days after his initial test. Using the
mathematical methods mentioned earlier he came up with a retention curve showing how much
of the information he was able to retrieve the next day. This figure can be seen on the
attatched sheet, Figure 9.3. Ebbinghaus discovered that the longer he repeated the list
on the first day the more he remembered on the second day when he was trying to recall
the information (Myers, 1998). Here is where the principle The amount remembered depends
on the time spent learning stems from (Myers 1998). Ebbinghaus didn't always remember
what he learned though. The amount he forgot can be seen his forgetting curve (see
attached sheet) Figure 9.13. Ebbinghaus tested himself up to thirty days after the inital
remembering and graphed what he remembered then (Myers, 1998). The results show that as
time increased percentage remembered decreases (Myers, 1998). Ebbinghaus did distinguish
that nonsense information is more easily forgotten then everyday material. According to
Gale (1996) Ebinghaus tested himself on 420 lists of 16 syllables 340 times each, making
14,280 trials. Ebbinghaus studied learning rates for meaningful and meaningless material
concluding that meaningful items such as sentences and words could be learned much more
efficiently than nonsense syllables (Gale, 1996). As a result of Ebbinghaus' work more
about memory is now known. It is better to evenly space memorization rather than memorize
it all at once (Gale, 1996). Despite Wunt's disagreement many still use Ebbinghaus' work
on memory as a model for research on human memory (Gale, 1996). Ebbinghaus also developed
a test for memory in 1894 while studying the mental capacities of children he developed a
sentence completion test that is still used today to measure intelligence (Gale, 1996).
This was the Ebbinghaus 5 first successful test of mental ability (Gale, 1996).
Ebbinghaus was the cofounder of the first German psychology journal, the Journal of
Psychology and Physiology of the Sense Organs in 1890 and wrote two text books: The
Principles of Psychology(1902) and A Summary of Psychology (1908). 
Bibliography
Bibliography 
Ebbinghaus 6 Refrences Beer, Colin G. (1993). Psychology, Experimental. Encarta
Encyclopedia. 1998. Microsoft Corperation. (1993-1998). Educational Psychology. Microsoft
Encarta Encyclopedia Microsoft Corperation. (1993-1998). Memory and Mental Processes.
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia. Myers, David. (1998). Psychology. New York. Worth
Publishers.