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Back to Subjects - Psychology

Ebbinghaus

Ebbinghaus Hermann Vonn Ebbinghaus was a German experimental psychologist. He was born the son of Lutheran merchants in Barman, Germany on January 24, 1850. At the age of 17 he began studying philosophy and history at the University of Bonn from 1867 to 1870. He later received his Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1873 after returning from his duty with the Prussian army. Ebbinghaus began travelling the continent both lecturing and studying. During his travels he stumbled upon a copy of Psychophysics by Gustav Theodor Fechner. This sparked an interest in “higher mental processes” and the problem that Wilhelm Wundt failed to solve experimentally. Wundt was the first to establish a laboratory for psychological experimentation. This left Ebbinghaus to study the error Wundt made regarding these higher mental processes. He began doing so using himself as the subject of the experiments. This would eventually result in his well known work translated as On Memory in 1885. Ebbinghaus invented what is known as the relearning task in which information is learned, set aside for a period of time, then relearned with the same criterion for accuracy. He measured the retention of memory and compared it to the original learning session. He coined the term “savings score” which is the amount of information that is retained (in terms of trials) or learned in comparison to the original learning task. In more simple terms the savings score would be represented as the amount of information saved in memory so that it did not need to be relearned. An example would be as follows: if it took 6 trials to originally learn some particular information, but only 3 trials after the relearning task, then 3 of 6 trials had been successfully encoded. This would represent a savings score of 50 percent. Ebbinghaus used nonsense syllables to demonstrate this experiment. Nonsense syllables are three letter combinations usually consisting of a consonant-vowel-consonant combination. These combinations which included some 2300, were not word and therefore did not make sense, hence the term “nonsense.” He used these so-called nonsense syllables in order to discourage how the prior existence of the meanings may influence learning of the present. He used nonsense syllables in order to prevent complications in the experiment and its results. In order for Ebbinghaus to regulate the grade of learning achieved, he incorporated a fixed learning criterion. In most conditions this criterion was that of one or more perfect recitations without any hesitations. As I had previously stated his only subject was himself, he presented himself with these nonsense syllables at a rate of 2.5 items per second. He completed many trials for accuracy in his data. From the data he gathered he was able to develop what we call the “Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve,” which I have drawn below. The curve shows us quite simply that forgetting is the most rapid the first few hours after learning. If one examines the graph he/she sees that after only 20 minutes after original learning the curve drops sharply showing the amount of information that is retained has greatly declined. After roughly two days after the initial learning phase the curve begins to level off with only a minimal decline in the amount of information retained. Ebbinghaus noted that people forget 90% of what they learned in a class after 30 days. Ebbinhaus also studied how repetition or what he called “overlearning” affects memory retention. He experimented with this by studying a particular list 32 times, which was the approximate number needed in order to accomplish one perfect recitation. This became his control condition in the experiment. In order to express “overlearning” he studied another list twice as much or 64 times. He found from this that the aspect of overlearning provided a much more lasting effect on memory. He concluded that repetition is the key to learning. Ebbinghaus also found that as he increased the list length that more original learning trials were required in order to memorize them. This being said, the longer lists required more learning trials. He found that after one day (24 hours) that once relearning took place that he managed more savings in the longer list than that of the shorter one. This was due to the larger number of learning trials for the larger list which shows “overlearning.” Ebbinghaus was also the first person to describe the primacy and recency effects. The primacy effect states that an individual tends to remember the first few items of a recall list in relation to its serial position. The recency effect is just the opposite whereas subjects remember the last few items of the list. The items that lie in the middle of a list are the ones that are less likely to be recalled. Many people did not accept the influence of Ebbinghaus and his experiments with nonsense syllables. These people argued that the nonsense syllable detracted meaning from the stimuli that was to be learned or remembered. It was argued that nonsense syllables are not generalizable therefore people in the “real world” will not deal with any meaningless stimulus such as nonsense syllables. They would in turn take the stimuli with no meaning and apply meaning to it. For example, they would transform the nonsense syllable S-A-T into “Saturday” mentally. The argument is that these nonsense syllables are misleading to psychology. On the contrary most people feel that his experiments still have significance in today’s research dealing with experimental psychology. Ebbinghaus had many achievements before he died of pneumonia in 1909. His life was short but his impact on Psychology was great. The fact that his experiments were done alone using himself as a subject is quite marvelous and his only equipment were pencil and paper. He devised all experiments without any structure or guidelines. The most spectacular thing about Ebbinghaus was that he was correct is all of his insights. It was known during his time years ago how astounding his accomplishments were and today respect is still given to what an amazing psychological feat he accomplished. Bibliography: Bibliography 1. Shakow, D. American Journal of Psychology. 1930. 2. Ebbinghaus, H. Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology.(english). 1913. 3. Ebbinghaus, H. On Memory. 1913. 4. Watston & Evans. The Great Psychologists: A History of Psycholgical Thought. 5th ed.

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