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See Also:

Cognitive psychology;

Experimental psychology;

Learning;

Memory;

Memory: Empirical studies;

Scientific methods.

Psychology & Behavioral Health

Ebbinghaus, Hermann

by Bryan C. Auday

Born: January 24, 1850

Died: February 26, 1909

Identity: German psychologist

Birthplace: Barmen, Prussia (now in Germany)

Place of death: Halle, Germany

Type of psychology: Learning; Memory

Ebbinghaus was a pioneer in studying learning and memory using scientific principles.

Hermann Ebbinghaus grew up in the small town of Barmen, located on the verdant banks of the Wupper River in northwestern Germany. After a brief stint in the Prussian army, he completed his doctoral studies in philosophy at the University of Bonn in 1873. Soon after completing his education, Ebbinghaus took up residence in Berlin and eventually traveled in France and England for several years. While in England, Ebbinghaus read Elemente der psychophysik (1860; Elements of Psychophysics, 1966) by Gustav Theodor Fechner, which many believe had a profound impact in shaping his approach to studying memory.

In 1879, Ebbinghaus began a series of experiments in learning and memory that involved using himself as the only research participant. At that time, the prevailing method for studying cognition was through introspection, which was popularized by the eminent psychologist, Wilhelm Wundt. Ebbinghaus chose to study memory from a radically different perspective. He used scientific methods borrowed from the natural sciences, which involved the use of statistics and mathematical formulas to explain performance.

To circumvent problems that common words posed for memory experiments, Ebbinghaus created his own stimuli, which he called nonsense syllables. These were three-letter syllables made up of a consonant-vowel-consonant, such as SOP or BEV. Ebbinghaus conducted hundreds of experiments in which he would require himself to rehearse a list of nonsense syllables to the point where he could write them down, in their proper order, with perfect accuracy. After a time delay, he attempted to relearn a list, keeping track of the number of rehearsals needed to regain 100 percent accuracy. He then made a calculation, referred to as the method of savings, which was based on the difference between the number of rehearsals needed for the initial learning and the second go-around.

Ebbinghaus published the results of his memory experiments in Über das gedächtnis: Untersuchurgen zur experimentellen Psychologie (1885; Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology, 1913). Attention was drawn to his forgetting curve, which indicated most forgetting was not a linear function. Instead, the majority of forgetting occurs during the first few hours and then gradually declines over the next several days and weeks.

Bibliography

1 

Boneau, Alan. “Hermann Ebbinghaus: On the Road to Progress or Down the Garden Path?” In Vol. 3 of Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology, edited by Gregory Kimble and Michael Wertheimer. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1998. Print.

2 

Halpern, Sue. Can't Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research. New York: Crown, 2013. Print.

3 

Howes, Mary. Human Memory: Structures and Images. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2007. Print.

4 

Neath, Ian, and Aimee Surprenant. Human Memory. 2d ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003. Print.

5 

Rey, Amandine Eve, Benoit Riou, and Rémy Versace. “Demonstration of an Ebbinghaus Illusion at a Memory Level: Manipulation of the Memory Size and Not the Perceptual Size.” Experimental Psychology (2014): PsycARTICLES. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.

6 

Whitman, R. Douglas. Cognition. Hoboken: Wiley, 2011. Print.

7 

Wozniak, Robert. Classics in Psychology, 1855–1914: Historical Essays. Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1999. Print.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Auday, Bryan C. "Ebbinghaus, Hermann." Psychology & Behavioral Health, edited by Paul Moglia, Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=PBH_0205.
APA 7th
Auday, B. C. (2015). Ebbinghaus, Hermann. In P. Moglia (Ed.), Psychology & Behavioral Health. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Auday, Bryan C. "Ebbinghaus, Hermann." Edited by Paul Moglia. Psychology & Behavioral Health. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2015. Accessed September 17, 2025. online.salempress.com.