If we talk about the psychological scientists of the nineteenth century, most people only think of the names of Sigmund Freud, who is overly enthusiastic about the problems of human sexuality, and the extremely self-confident Friedrich Nietzsche. However, besides them, there were still many other, no less talented, but more modest scientists, whose contribution to the development of the science of the properties of the human brain is invaluable. Among them is the German experimenter German Ebbinghaus. Let's find out who he is and what humanity owes him.
Who is Herman Ebbinghaus?
This German scientist, who lived in the second half of the nineteenth century, was one of the first in history to study memory and human perception with the help of practical experiments that he set on himself.
More than a hundred years after his death, but the discoveries of Ebbinghaus remain relevant today and are actively used by scientists around the world. And nobody has yet been able to surpass his methods.
Early years of the scientist
Hermann Ebbinghaus (Ebbinghaus) was born in the Prussian city of Barmen (now German Wuppertal) on January 24, 1850.
The father of the future scientist, Karl Ebbinghaus, was a very successful Lutheran merchant and hoped that his offspring would continue the family business.
However, young German was not interested in exact sciences, but in the humanities and natural sciences. In fairness, it is worth noting that Herman Ebbingauz also knew quite well about mathematics and the related disciplines, which in the future helped him in scientific activities.
Therefore, contrary to the wishes of the parent, the young man decided to devote himself to science.
The first scientific work of Ebbinghaus
When Herman was seventeen years old, he easily entered the University of Bonn, where he intended to devote himself to the study of philology and history. But soon the young man found for himself a more entertaining hobby - philosophy.
Why exactly her? The fact is that at that time, science a la psychology, pedagogy and the like did not yet acquire the full separate status that they have today. Therefore, in most universities they were under the jurisdiction of philosophy.
Three years later, Otto von Bismarck (trying to unite all German lands together) forced Prussia to enter the war with France of Napoleon III. Being at a military age, Ebbinghauser was forced to leave school and go to war to the front.
Fate protected the future scientific luminary - he survived and pretty soon was able to return to a peaceful life, continuing his studies at his native university.
By 1873, Hermann Ebbingaz had written his first scientific work based on the book Philosophy of the Unconscious by Edward von Hartmann.
This dissertation turned out to be so fresh and entertaining that at the age of twenty-three Ebbinghaus received a doctorate. Many noted that while many of the ideas in this work were based on the findings of von Hartmann, this was not copying. Since the author expressed his own original judgment, to which no one dared.
Vocation Search
After graduation, the young scientist decides to concentrate on studying the characteristics of human psychology. In 1879, Ebbinghaus traveled to Berlin, where he received a teaching position at the university. Here he opens his own psychic laboratory, as was fashionable in the scientific community of that time.
In his spare time from teaching, the newly minted doctor of sciences gives lectures in France, and later in the south of Great Britain. It was in this country that the scientist was lucky to find his calling.
During his next visit to London, Ebbinghaus visited a used bookstore. So, among dusty shelves, he accidentally discovered a volume of "Elements of Psychophysics" by Gustav Fechner. It was this book, according to the scientist himself, that inspired him to begin experiments on the study of human memory.
Ebbinghaus experiments
Like most of his great predecessors, as a subject for scientific experiments, this scientist chose his beloved, or rather his brain. Over the course of two years, through trial and error, he developed his own method.
Herman Ebbinghaus composed 2300 cards with three-letter syllables, which had no lexical or associative meaning. Thus, the brain was not able to understand them and memorization was reduced to banal cramming. The use of these so-called meaningless syllables meant that the brain of the experimenter had not previously encountered them and could not know them.
For specially allotted periods of time, the scientist memorized the contents of the cards by repeating aloud the syllables chosen in random order. To simplify this process, the experimenter used a metronome or the rosary method. This helped measure the exact amount of material studied.
Subsequently, Ebbinghaus checked his results by other variations of his first experience, thus revealing various properties of human memory (time of forgetting and memorization, the amount of learned and forgotten information, subconscious memory and the influence of emotions on memorization).
Based on many years of experiments of this kind, the “Meaningless Syllables” method of Hermann Ebbinghaus was formulated, which became revolutionary for that time. It is believed that a full-fledged experimental psychology began its history precisely from the experiments of this scientist. By the way, today many psychologists continue to use his methods in their research.
The book of Hermann Ebbinghaus "On memory" (1885) and further work
Based on the results of his many years of experimentation, Ebbinghaus wrote the book Über das Gedächtnis. Untersuchungen zur experellen Psychologie, which brought him recognition and fame among scientists around the world.
Soon, it was translated into English under the name Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology (“Memory: Contribution to Experimental Psychology”). In a Russian translation, this work is known as “On Memory”.
German Ebbinghaus thanks to his work received not only recognition, but also a certain financial stability. Thanks to this, he was able to leave his job at the University of Berlin, where his career did not develop very successfully. The fact is that he ignored the need for constant writing of theoretical articles, due to the constant employment in the laboratory. Therefore, I could not get the desired place as the head of the Faculty of Philosophy, which was given to another teacher.
Leaving Berlin, the scientist soon finds work at the Polish University in Breslau (now Wroclaw), which specializes in studying the reduction in the amount of school material.
Based on the results and techniques used in the experiments of Ebbinghaus and his other colleagues from Breslau, a method for testing Alfred Binet’s child’s mental abilities was further developed and the now known Binet-Simon intelligence scale was created.
Further career
Ebbinghaus shared the results of research in a new laboratory in 1902 with the publication of Die GrundzĂĽge der Psychologie (Fundamentals of Psychology).
This book made him even more famous and forever changed the face of the science of psychology. According to contemporaries, the books of Hermann Ebbinghaus forever buried the psychology of the 1890s.
The last years of Ebbinghaus
Two years after the publication of "Fundamentals of Psychology", their author and his family left Poland and returned to their homeland, in Galle. Here he spent the last years of his life.
In 1908, the scientist published his new work Abriss der Psychologie (Sketches on Psychology), which again confirmed the genius of Ebbinghaus and was reprinted eight times during his lifetime.
Such success inspired the experimenter to continue his experiments, however, he was not destined to carry out his plan.
In the winter of 1909, Herman Ebbinghaus fell ill with a cold. Soon this disease developed into pneumonia and on February 26 the great scientist died.
Among his descendants, the most successful was the son of Ebbinghaus - Julius, though not in psychology, but in philosophy, becoming one of Kant's most famous adherents.
Ebbinghaus innovations
Despite his short life (59 years), this scientist made a lot of important discoveries that influenced her future development of science.
- The researcher was the first to study the optical errors of the organs of vision, discovering the so-called illusion of Ebbinghaus - the dependence of the perception of the size of an object on the objects surrounding it.
- He also introduced the term “curve of forgetting”. Herman Ebbinghaus so called the line that characterizes the time of forgetting.
According to the scientist, 40% of the data obtained are forgotten over the next 20 minutes. An hour later, the amount of information "lost" by the brain is already equal - 50%, and the next day - 70%.
- Ebbinghaus discovered that meaningful information remembers better than data that the brain does not understand.
- He proved the importance of repetition in the process of learning new things.
- He also discovered the “memorization curve”.
- Ebbinghaus introduced several new methods of memory development into science: “memorization”, “anticipation” and “saving”.