The prominent psychologist Edward Titchener expressed the value that Hermann Ebbinghaus played in experimental psychology while giving his eulogy, saying,
As I approach the topic of this lecture, what is uppermost in my mind is a sense of irreparable loss. When the cable brought the bad news, last February, that Ebbinghaus was dead… the feeling that took precedence even of personal sorrow was the wonder of what experimental psychology would do without him. (Hoffman & Bamberg, 2005)
Fortunately, experimental psychology survived the death of Ebbinghaus, aided by the strong foundation, objectivity, and research that he laid down. Ebbinghaus meticulously studied the subject of memory, using strict, rigorous methods. The work that he completed expanded the breadth of human knowledge, as well as the reach of psychological studies.
Not a great deal is known of Hermann Ebbinghaus’s younger years, although he was born on January 24th, 1850 in Barmen, Germany to a relatively wealthy family (Hoffman & Gorfein, 1987). According to the American Journal of Psychology, he attended Barmen’s gymnasium until the age of seventeen, when he went to the University of Bonn. His collegiate education …show more content…
After initially memorizing the information, he then determined how many repetitions it took to perfectly recall these lists a day later. He found that relearning information took about one-third of the time that it takes to originally learn the data. Interestingly enough, this was mostly independent of list length (Hoffman & Gorfein, 1987). Distributed practice of information over several days was found to be a much more effective strategy for learning than mass practice, a useful and readily applicable strategy for students (Galván and Galván, 2013). As shown above, practical strategies for learning information more effectively began with the work that Ebbinghaus
As I approach the topic of this lecture, what is uppermost in my mind is a sense of irreparable loss. When the cable brought the bad news, last February, that Ebbinghaus was dead… the feeling that took precedence even of personal sorrow was the wonder of what experimental psychology would do without him. (Hoffman & Bamberg, 2005)
Fortunately, experimental psychology survived the death of Ebbinghaus, aided by the strong foundation, objectivity, and research that he laid down. Ebbinghaus meticulously studied the subject of memory, using strict, rigorous methods. The work that he completed expanded the breadth of human knowledge, as well as the reach of psychological studies.
Not a great deal is known of Hermann Ebbinghaus’s younger years, although he was born on January 24th, 1850 in Barmen, Germany to a relatively wealthy family (Hoffman & Gorfein, 1987). According to the American Journal of Psychology, he attended Barmen’s gymnasium until the age of seventeen, when he went to the University of Bonn. His collegiate education …show more content…
After initially memorizing the information, he then determined how many repetitions it took to perfectly recall these lists a day later. He found that relearning information took about one-third of the time that it takes to originally learn the data. Interestingly enough, this was mostly independent of list length (Hoffman & Gorfein, 1987). Distributed practice of information over several days was found to be a much more effective strategy for learning than mass practice, a useful and readily applicable strategy for students (Galván and Galván, 2013). As shown above, practical strategies for learning information more effectively began with the work that Ebbinghaus