Hermann Ebbinghaus

Name: Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology — Chapter 8
Author: Hermann Ebbinghaus

Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology… (1913)

Summary

“Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology — Chapter 8”, published in 1913, is a work by Hermann Ebbinghaus. It explores elements such as repetitions, series and syllable.

Quotes from Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology… (Hermann Ebbinghaus)

Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology… (1913)

“ The series are gradually forgotten, but—as is sufficiently well known—the series which have been learned twice fade away much more slowly than those which have been learned but once. If the re-learning is performed a second, a third or a greater number of times, the series are more deeply engraved and fade out less easily and finally, as one would anticipate, they become possessions of the soul as constantly available as other image-series which may be meaningful and useful. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology… (1913)

“ For the relearning of a 12-syllable series at a definite time, accordingly, 38 repetitions, distributed in a certain way over the three preceding days, had just as favorable an effect as 68 repetitions made on the day just previous. Even if one makes very great concessions to the uncertainty of numbers based on so few researches, the difference is large enough to be significant. It makes the assumption probable that with any considerable number of repetitions a suitable distribution of them over a space of time is decidedly more advantageous than the massing of them at a single time. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology… (1913)

“ Series of syllables which have been learned by heart, forgotten, and learned anew must be similar as to their inner conditions at the times when they can be recited. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology… (1913)

“ On each day the average number of repetitions necessary for the committing of a given series is less than on the preceding day. With the longer series, in whose case the first output of energy is great, the decrease in the amount of work each time necessary to reach the first possible reproduction is proportionally rapid. With the shorter series, where the first output is small, the decrease is proportionally slow. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology… (1913)

“ The relation of repetitions for learning and for repeating English stanzas needs no amplification. These were learned by heart on the first day with less than half of the repetitions necessary for the shortest of the syllable series. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology… (1913)

“ The quotients of the necessary repetitions on two successive days approach unity. If the final repetition were not subtracted, as was done in the concluding table of Section 31, but were reckoned in, this approach would be somewhat faster. (In the case of the English stanzas it generally takes place only under these conditions.) Nevertheless the course of the numbers cannot be described by a simple formula.
Rather is this the case if one takes into consideration, not the gradually decreasing necessity for work, but the just as gradually decreasing saving of work. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology… (1913)

“ The school-boy doesn’t force himself to learn his vocabularies and rules altogether at night, but knows that he must impress them again in the morning. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology… (1913)

“ On the basis of the familiar experience that that which is learned with difficulty is better retained, it would have been safe to prophesy such an effect from the greater number of repetitions. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Hermann Ebbinghaus, Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology… (1913)

“ Although the course of these figures, which are, as has been said, inexact as to their absolute values, is tolerably regular in the case of the 24-syllable series only, its general character agrees very well with what would be expected from the results of Chapter IV. The effect of the repetitions is at first approximately constant, the saving in work which results from these repetitions increases accordingly for a while proportional to their number. Gradually the effect becomes less ”

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Summary

Quotes from Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology… (Hermann Ebbinghaus)

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