Hermann Ebbinghaus

Modified: 2014-01-02

Ebbinghaus was the first person to study memory scientifically. The story of how he was inspired to study memory is interesting. Late in the nineteenth century, Ebbinghaus was browsing through books in a Parisian bookstore (some sources say London) and he came across a copy of Fechner's (Recall him?) Elemente. After he read it, he determined to apply Fechner's ideas to the study of memory and forgetting.

He invented the nonsense syllable or CVC (for Consonant Vowel Consonant). The nonsense syllable cannot also be a word, obviously. CAT is not a nonsense syllable even though it is a CVC. He also invented the relearning method of measuring memory. He used nonsense syllables precisely because they were difficult to remember and easy to forget because they had very little intrinsic meaning. Some have called Ebbinghaus's approach the "high road" to memory, or the study of pure memory, little affected by content (although, during his lifetime his research was considered content laden.). Modern approaches to memory, by the way, are more likely to take the "low road" or to study memory in natural situations, where content is included. Much of Ebbinghaus's data are still current today, a remarkable achievement. This graphic shows the basic pattern of forgetting that Ebbinghaus discovered which has been reconfirmed many times since.

Above I said that the "high road" studies memory with little influence from content. It is not possible to study memory with NO influence from content because even nonsense syllables are affected by content. In research today, one can control for the effect above by using easy or hard lists of nonsense syllables. Those lists have been derived from other research.

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