Hermann Ebbinghaus
January 24, 1850 - February 26, 1909
Hermann Ebbinghaus: Pioneer of Memory Psychology
Hermann Ebbinghaus was the very first psychologist to study learning and memory experimentally. Hermann experimented on himself and to help with his experiments he developed nonsense syllables. Nonsense syllables are short three letter words that dont have any meaning at all and are used to study memory or speech. He also came up with the forgetting curve, which states that after you learn something you lose most of the information within the first few hours after you learn it. It also says that forgetting slows down after time. In his lifetime Ebbinghaus wrote four books. His first book was Memory, followed by the Journal of Psychology and Physiology, and then his two textbooks, The Principles of Psychology, and A Summary of Psychology. A little known fact about Hermann is that he was not originally interested in psychology. At first he was very interested in history and philosophy and even got his degree in philosophy. It wasn't until after college during his studies in Berlin, England, and France, that he became interested in Psychology.
Hermann Ebbinghaus' Work Today
Hermann's research was very important, especially for today, because now we understand how people learn and forget. With his experiments we can predict how fast someone can learn and how much they will forget until the next time it is reviewed. If Hermann was still alive today, he would most likely take his research to the education system and try and fit curriculum to compensate for the memory loss that students may learn the information better and quicker.