3. “New Psychology” by W. Wundt.
Physiology of the 19th century. was imbued with the spirit of the philosophy of mechanism. Nowhere was this spirit more evident than in Germany. In the 40s XIX century a group of researchers organized the Berlin Physical Society. These young people (all under 30 years old) were united by the belief that any phenomenon can be explained using the laws of physics. They hoped to combine physiology with physics and develop physiology within the framework of mechanistic ideas about the nature of the psyche. According to legend, young scientists took a solemn oath, which stated: life is the result of physical and chemical reactions, and nothing more. Such was the scientific atmosphere that inspired German physiologists in their research.
So, in the 19th century. In German physiology, all advanced scientific trends intersected: materialism, mechanism, empiricism, experimental and measurement methods. This gave a powerful impetus to the development of experimental psychology.
Psychophysics G.-T. Fechner and E. Weber. Experimental psychology arose partly from psychophysics - the science of connections between the physical and mental worlds. It was conceived by a German physiologist Gustav Theodor Fechner and made his name famous.
Fechner proposed that there is a law establishing the connection between the brain and the body, which can be expressed in terms of the quantitative relationship between mental sensation and physical stimulus.
As a result of his research, Fechner came to the conclusion that increasing the intensity level of the stimulus does not cause an identical increase in the intensity of the sensation; with an increase in the intensity of the stimulus in a geometric progression, the intensity of the sensation increases only in an arithmetic progression. Consequently, the intensity of the stimulus affects the intensity of the evoked sensations not absolutely, but relatively. Thus, it became possible to correlate the physical and mental worlds in quantitative terms. Fechner managed to overcome the barrier that separated soul and body.
To study sensations, Fechner proposed using two methods: determining the absolute threshold and determining the differentiated sensitivity threshold. (Recall: the absolute threshold is the lowest intensity of the stimulus, under the influence of which a person experiences a sensation; differentiated (relative) threshold is the smallest difference in the intensity of the stimulus that can be detected by a person.)
Fechner proposed that for each of the senses there is some relative magnitude of increase in stimulus that causes the observed change in the intensity of the sensation. The relationship between the magnitude of a sensation and a stimulus can be expressed as a logarithm, where S is the intensity of the sensation, K is an experimentally established constant, and R is the magnitude of the stimulus.
In addition to the laws of sensation, Fechner also developed the most important psychophysical techniques that are still used today: the average error method, the constant stimulus method, the threshold method, etc.
At the same time, similar experiments were carried out at the same University of Leipzig Ernst Weber, who studied the magnitude of “subtle differences” - the minimum difference in the weight of two weights that a person can recognize. He obtained results that coincided with Fechner's results: there is no direct correspondence between the intensity of a physical stimulus and our sensations. Weber suggested that to determine a barely noticeable difference in sensations, a certain constant coefficient, different for each of the senses, can be derived.
Weber also studied the phenomenon of the 2-point threshold, the point at which a person can recognize two independent sources of sensation. Weber's experiments became the first experimental confirmation of the threshold theory, according to which there is a moment when a physiological and mental reaction begins. In the future, this theory will become the main one in the works of Fechner and Herbart.
Thus, G.-T. Fechner and E. Weber proposed their approach and methods for studying psychological phenomena. Based on psychophysics data, W. Wundt will develop his plan for experimental psychology.
Experimental psychology of G. Helmholtz. In addition to the works of E. Weber and G.-T. Fechner, the beginning of a new psychology was laid by research Hermann von Helmholtz.
We have already mentioned that it was Helmholtz who conducted the first experiments on measuring the speed of transmission of a nerve impulse. His interests also extended to the psychophysiology of hearing and vision. His work in these areas was fundamental for his time.
Based on numerous experiments on the study of simple and complex tones, G. von Helmholtz comes to the conclusion that the human sound and hearing apparatus has a resonant nature. Oral apparatus acts as a resonator, giving vowels their differences. A hearing aid is a system of resonators tuned to perceive certain tones.
No less important were Helmholtz's work on the study of the mechanism of vision. He studied the external muscles of the eye and the mechanisms by which the internal muscles of the eye move the lens to focus vision. Helmholtz revised and expanded the theory of color vision developed in early XIX V. Thomas Jung (according to this theory, there are three primary colors, red, green and violet, from the mixture of which the whole variety of colors arises).
Another conclusion that can be drawn from numerous experiments by G. von Helmholtz is the conclusion that perception is irreducible to the sum of the properties of perceived objects. A person always perceives more than the sum of experimental data. From this, Helmholtz concludes that there is an internal additional mechanism that influences our perception of external objects. He called this mechanism “unconscious inference” and believed that it comes down to the associative synthesis of sensorimotor components.
With his works, G. von Helmholtz laid the foundation for the modern theory of hearing and vision, anticipated some ideas of Gestalt psychology, established the conditionality of a mental act by past experience, and also did a lot to give psychology a natural-scientific character.
New psychology of W. Wundt. But the real founder of the new experimental psychological science was the German scientist Wilhelm Wundt.
Wundt's most important contribution to psychology was his research into the experience of consciousness. He believed that consciousness actively organizes its own structure. Wundt called his theory of consciousness voluntarism - the doctrine of the continuous self-development of consciousness. However, the basis of his theory is the study of the elements of consciousness.
According to W. Wundt, psychology deals with the experience of the subject. But this experience is not uniform. Vicarious Experience represents information that depends on past experience and therefore is not direct experience. Wundt considered, for example, the following judgments to be mediated experience: beautiful woman, red flower, I want to sleep - they are all based on past experiences. Direct Experience– experience, “purified” of interpretations, independent of previous experience and knowledge.
Wundt believed that direct experience is very important element consciousness is a form of active organization by the mind of its structures. By studying direct experience, Wundt intended to dissect consciousness into elements or component parts.
In order to study consciousness/experience, a psychologist can use only one method - the method of introspection. Although the term itself dates back to Socrates, Wundt was able to organize strictly scientific experiments based on introspection.
What does consciousness/experience consist of? Wundt proposed that one form of experience is sensation. Another form of direct experience is feelings. In the process of experimentation, Wundt creates a three-dimensional model of feeling. According to his theory, each feeling can be located in a three-dimensional space formed by the following dimensions: pleasure - discomfort, tension - relaxation, rise - decay. Complex combinations of simple feelings create emotions. All this together (sensations, feelings and emotions) create the elements of consciousness/experience.
In the process of numerous experiments, W. Wundt discovered that people perceive something more than just the sum of sensations and feelings. To explain this phenomenon, Wundt assumes the existence of a process of synthesis of elements of perception into a single whole - apperception, which was a new step compared to the ideas of the English associationists.
To explain the complex mental life, Wundt sought to derive mental laws. Material movement, he said, can only be the cause of material phenomena. For psychic phenomena there is another source and they, accordingly, require other laws. Wundt included such laws as: the principle of creative synthesis, the law of mental relations, the law of contrast, etc.
In 1875, Wundt became a professor at the University of Leipzig and in the early years created a psychological laboratory here. In the first twenty years of the existence of this laboratory, more than a hundred scientific works were carried out in it. In particular, experiments were conducted in Wundt's laboratory to study the psychological and physiological aspects of vision, hearing and other senses. Particular attention was paid to experiments studying reaction time. Experiments were conducted to study attention and feelings, including those aimed at confirming Wundt's three-dimensional concept of feelings. Wide publicity attracted a large number of young scientists to the laboratory.
Thus, W. Wundt can rightfully be considered the “father” of modern psychology as an independent science. He created the first psychological scientific school in history. Wundt played an important role in consolidating the community of psychological researchers. Discussions about his theoretical position and the methods he used stimulated the emergence of new concepts and directions.
Experimental psychology of G. Ebbinghaus. Just a few years after W. Wundt declared the impossibility of experimental research of higher mental functions, a lone German psychologist, working outside of any university, began to successfully use experiments to study these processes.
At that time (late 70s - early 80s of the 19th century), the generally accepted method of studying consciousness and memory was the study of already established associations. Researchers have tried to establish the nature of the existing connections. Hermann Ebbinghaus approached the problem from the other side - from the formation of associations. In this way, he could control the conditions for the emergence of associations, and, therefore, make the study of memory processes more objective.
Ebbinghaus set out to establish the laws of memory “in their pure form,” and for this purpose he chose special material. The unit of such material was not words (they are always associated with concepts), but individual meaningless syllables. Each syllable consisted of two consonants and a vowel between them.
Ebbinghaus conducted experiments to study the characteristics of learning and memorization under various conditions. He presented the results of these classic works in the book “On Memory”. First of all, Ebbinghaus found out the dependence of the number of repetitions necessary for memorization on the size of the memorized material and established that with one repetition, as a rule, seven syllables are memorized. When increasing the list, it was necessary to significantly larger number repetitions than the number of words added to the original list.
The “forgetting curve” drawn by Ebbinghaus has gained particular popularity, according to which material is forgotten most quickly in the first hours after memorization, and then the rate of forgetting slowly decreases.
Ebbinghaus's experiments also compared the time required to learn a meaningful text and a list of nonsense syllables. It was found that meaningful material was remembered nine times faster. The “forgetting curve” in both cases had the same shape, although meaningful material was forgotten more slowly.
Ebbinghaus also opened the way for experimental learning of skills. The experiments of American psychologists Brian and Harter in developing the skills of receiving and sending telegrams were based on the methodology proposed by Ebbinghaus.
Thus, the work of Ebbinghaus, Bryan and Harter formed the basis of a new movement that differed from the structuralism of Wundt. The new direction discovered psychological phenomena themselves and established the experimental method in their study.
Although Ebbinghaus did not make theoretical contributions to psychology and did not create his own scientific school, he had a huge influence on science, perhaps even greater than W. Wundt. His scientific views and conclusions have stood the test of time. His research brought objectivity to quantitative conclusions in the study of higher mental processes - one of the central topics of modern psychology. Many of Ebbinghaus's conclusions about the nature of learning and memory remain valid to this day.
Lecture 8: ZOO PSYCHOLOGY. DIFFERENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY.
The pioneer in the study of human memory was the German scientist Hermann Ebbinghaus, who was the first to study the processes remembering and forgetting. Ebbinghaus experimented on himself. The main idea of the method was to memorize meaningless lists of words or syllables. The goal that the scientist set for himself was to study the formation and retention in memory of new associations that are not related to existing ones (or are not dependent on them). Therefore, he used meaningless syllables, considering them free of any semantic associations. Ebbinghaus memorized lists of such syllables until he could reproduce them correctly. After some time he checked. A quantitative measure of forgetting was the number of additional repetitions required to restore correct recall of the lists. This made it possible to judge how much of the memorized material was retained in memory.
One of important discoveries Ebbinghaus was that if the list is not very large (of 7 or fewer syllables), then it can be remembered with one reading. If the list of syllables is increased beyond 7, then the time for memorization increases sharply. Therefore, 7 elements that can be remembered immediately are called capacity of short-term memory.
Another discovery of Ebbinghaus was that the number retained material depends on the length of time from memorization to testing. It turned out that as this time increases, the amount of forgotten material increases. Graph in Fig. 12.2 shows that at first forgetting occurs very quickly, and then its speed decreases more slowly and becomes constant.
In such simple experiments it was possible to study the influence of some factors influencing memory performance. For example, at lower rates of syllable presentation, learning occurs faster. The ease of remembering a given element depends on the place it occupies in the series. The number of errors when reproducing the middle elements of a series is greater than the first or last ones (Fig. 12.3). This phenomenon is called positional effect, and it occurs for series of any length exceeding the capacity of short-term memory.
In subsequent studies, many variants of the tests arose, which were first proposed by Ebbinghaus as method of “memorizing rows”. For example, when studying memory they often use paired association method. In this case, each element of the list is a complex consisting of two parts: for example, BOOK - 7, etc. After memorizing such pairs, the subject must name, upon presentation of the 1st element, the 2nd element of the pair. One of the supposed advantages of the paired association method is that one element can be considered both as a stimulus (1st part) and as a response (2nd part). According to some theorists, the method of “memorizing series” makes it possible to directly study associations between stimulus and response. In fact, everything is not so simple here. Subjects often change elements to facilitate memorization in some way that is peculiar to them, for example, the element CAT-M to CAT-MOUSE. In this case, what is remembered is not at all what is contained in the initial association CAT-M.
Another method - free recall: The subject can reproduce the elements in any order. During free recall, a positional effect is observed (see Figure 12.3). We will return to this phenomenon later.
Next method - recognition test. It differs from others in the form of testing: the subject is presented with words and asked to say whether he recognizes them as elements of the original series. In other words, the subject does not remember the entire series, but only recognizes it. The test subject must answer “yes” or “no” to the presentation of each subsequent element. Another form of recognition test is the method forced choice. The subject is presented with not one, but two or more elements simultaneously. One of them is included in the original list, but the rest are not. The test taker must determine which item was on the original list. You can present two elements at the same time - this will be a two-alternative choice, three elements - a three-alternative choice, etc. This test is a multiple choice test. Sometimes all the words are presented printed on paper, and the subject underlines recognizable words. For example, a subject who was previously presented with the DAK-7 element can be presented with a number of elements during testing and asked to choose one: DAK-? (5, 8, 7, 1).
In addition to those listed, there are many tests that are used to study human memory. For more detailed information, please refer to the relevant manuals.
If we talk about psychological scientists of the 19th century, the only names that come to mind for most are the names of Sigmund Freud, who was overly keen on the problems of human sexuality, and the extremely self-confident Friedrich Nietzsche. However, besides them, there were 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 Hermann Ebbinghaus. Let's find out who he is and what humanity owes to him.
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 using practical experiences, which I put on myself.
More than a hundred years have passed since his death, but Ebbinghaus’s discoveries remain relevant today and are actively used by scientists around the world. And so far no one has been able to surpass his methods.
Hermann Ebbinghaus (Ebbinghaus) was born in the Prussian city of Barmen (now Wuppertal, Germany) 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 Herman was not interested in the exact sciences, but in the humanities and natural sciences. To be fair, it is worth noting that Hermann Ebbinghaus also had a good understanding of mathematics and related disciplines, which in the future helped him in his scientific work.
Therefore, contrary to the wishes of his parent, the young man decided to devote himself to science.
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 a more entertaining hobby for himself - philosophy.
Why her? The fact is that at that time, science a la psychology, pedagogy and the like had not yet acquired the full-fledged separate status that they have today. Therefore, in most universities they were under the jurisdiction of philosophy.
Three years later, Otto von Bismarck (seeking to unite all German lands together) forced Prussia to go to war with Napoleon III's France. Being of conscription age, Ebbinghauser was forced to leave his studies and go to fight at the front.
Fate protected the future scientific luminary - he survived and quite soon was able to return to peaceful life, continuing his studies at his native university.
By 1873, Hermann Ebbingas wrote his first scientific work, based on Eduard von Hartmann's book The Philosophy of the Unconscious.
This dissertation turned out to be so fresh and entertaining that Ebbinghaus received his doctorate at the age of twenty-three. Many noted that although many of the ideas in this work were based on von Hartmann's findings, it was not a copy. Since the author expressed his own original judgments, which no one had dared to make before.
After graduating from university, the young scientist decides to concentrate on studying the characteristics of human psychology. In 1879, Ebbinghaus went to Berlin, where he received a teaching position at the university. Here he opens his own psychic laboratory, as was fashionable in scientific circles of that time.
In his free time from teaching, the newly minted doctor of science lectures in France, and later in the south of Great Britain. It was in this country that the scientist was lucky enough to find his calling.
During his next visit to London, Ebbinghaus visited a second-hand bookshop. So, among the 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.
Like most of his great predecessors, this scientist chose his beloved self, or rather his brain, as an object for scientific experiments. Over the course of two years, he developed his own method through trial and error.
Hermann Ebbinghaus compiled 2,300 cards with three-letter syllables that 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 nonsense syllables meant that the experimenter's brain had not previously encountered them and could not know them.
During specially designated periods of time, the scientist memorized the contents of the cards by repeating out loud syllables chosen in random order. To simplify this process, the experimenter used a metronome or rosary method. This helped to measure out the exact amount of material being studied.
Subsequently, Ebbinghaus tested his results through other variations of his first experiment, thus identifying various properties of human memory (time of forgetting and learning, amount of information learned and forgotten, 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 full-fledged experimental psychology began its history precisely with the experiments of this scientist. By the way, today many psychologists continue to use his methods in their research.
Based on the results of his many years of experiments, Ebbinghaus wrote the book Über das Gedächtnis. Untersuchungen zur experellen Psychologie, which brought him recognition and wide fame among scientists all over the world.
It was soon translated into English under the title Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology. In the Russian translation, this work is known as “On Memory.”
Thanks to his work, Hermann Ebbinghaus 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 was not developing very successfully. The fact is that he ignored the need to constantly write theoretical articles due to his constant employment in the laboratory. Therefore, he could not get the coveted position of head of the philosophy department, which was given to another teacher.
After leaving Berlin, the scientist soon finds work at the Polish university in Breslau (now Wroclaw), which specializes in studying the reduction of the amount of litter in schoolchildren.
Based on the results and methods used in the experiments of Ebbinghaus and his other colleagues from Breslau, a method for testing children's mental abilities of Alfred Binet was subsequently formed and the now famous Binet-Simon intelligence scale was created.
Ebbinghaus shared the results of his research in the new laboratory with the public in 1902, publishing the work Die Grundzüge der Psychologie (“Fundamentals of Psychology”).
This book made him even more famous and forever changed the face of the science of psychology. As contemporaries argued, the books of Hermann Ebbinghaus forever buried the psychology of the 1890s.
Two years after the publication of “Fundamentals of Psychology,” its author and his family left Poland and returned to their homeland, Halle. Here he spent last years life.
In 1908, the scientist published his new work Abriss der Psychologie (“Sketches on Psychology”), which again confirmed the genius of Ebbinghaus and was republished eight times during the author’s lifetime.
Such success inspired the experimenter to continue his experiments, however, he was not destined to carry out his plans.
In the winter of 1909, Hermann Ebbinghaus fell ill with a cold. Soon this disease developed into pneumonia and on February 26 the great scientist passed away.
Among his descendants, Ebbinghaus's son Julius achieved the greatest success, although not in psychology, but in philosophy, becoming one of Kant's most famous adherents.
Despite short life(59 years old) this scientist made a lot of important discoveries that influenced her future development of science.
II. PROBLEMS OF MEMORY PSYCHOLOGY.
THEORIES AND MODELS.
EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES
Hermann Ebbinghaus
CHANGE OF MIND FORMATIONS
Ebbinghaus Hermann(January 24, 1850 - November 26, 1909) - German psychologist. Starting from the works of G. Fechner, he was the first to try to extend the objective experimental method to the study of higher mental functions - memory (1885) and intelligence (1897). In his classic study “On Memory,” Ebbinghaus developed the basic techniques for its experimental research. In an effort to study memory in its “pure form,” he used meaningless syllables as memorization material, due to which the patterns he established turned out to be valid in relation to mechanical, and not semantic memory characteristic of humans. Ebbinghaus's work had a decisive influence on the introduction of objective experimental methods into psychology as opposed to introspective ones.
Essays: Essay on psychology. St. Petersburg, 1911; Basics of psychology. St. Petersburg, 1912; Über das Gedächtnis. Lpz., 1885.
General law of association. In the phenomenon of attention, mental processes are narrowed to a certain extent. The soul avoids the motley variety of simultaneous influences. She confines herself mainly to what has an outstanding significance for her, both in good and in evil, and she reacts to them, if possible, in a simple way. But this pattern is successfully complemented by another: mental processes at the same time spread in breadth; in another respect, the soul gives each time more than is required of it. And only the wonderful expediency of the laws prevailing here becomes obvious to those who understand that it is precisely this narrowing of its activity that gives it full opportunity for expansion, which is so important.
You begin to recite in the presence of another person: “Who gallops, who rushes,” and he continues: “under the cold
darkness." You ask him: "7×9?", and he, without hesitation, answers: "63". You ask: "le pain?", and he answers: "bread." You meet a person, and it comes to you think of its name, although no one has spoken it. Or you see a fruit and think about its taste, although you have not even touched it. The smell of tar awakens ideas of ships and sea travel, the smell of carbolic acid - of hospitals and operations. What is in all does such cases happen?
You have repeatedly heard the entire poem, you have repeatedly had taste impressions of the fruit immediately following its visual impression; This happened due to objective reasons that correspond to these impressions. And now, at the present time, one part of these causes again affects the soul and causes corresponding impressions, while the remaining causes are absent; nevertheless, the actions of these absent causes also enter consciousness at least as representations of the absent causes. And in general if have any mental formations ever filled consciousness simultaneously or in close sequence, then subsequently repetition of the same members of this previous experience causes ideas of the remaining members, even if their original causes were absent. Our soul always expands and enriches what is directly given to it, based on its previous experiences. With the help of ideas, she constantly restores those broader connections and greater unities in which she once experienced what is currently given to her in parts and full of gaps. She perceives little of what each time claims her attention; but what penetrates into it, thanks to successfully developed conditions, it clothes and impregnates with its own past. In other words, the formations that enter consciousness themselves determine this addition to their past, and this is precisely the effect that they have.
The general capacity of the soul for this work called memory. For the very fact of the revival of previous experiences, our everyday speech has not developed one general name, but has developed such a name only for one case, which in practice is of particular importance. If any mental contents that once existed in man and are now reborn as ideas,
are accompanied at the same time either by the consciousness that they have once been experienced, and perhaps by ideas about certain collateral circumstances, then such a process is called memory. It is not advisable to limit the study to this special case alone, which is not always realized in real life, and therefore science created the term "playback", denoting in the most general terms the process of revival of once experienced contents of consciousness in the form of ideas. Between reproduction and memory, therefore, there is approximately the same relation as exists between work and energy; the first expression denotes a process observed in reality, and the second denotes the possibility of its occurrence, which should be imagined to exist even in the absence of the process. Even more often, however, scientific terminology uses another word, which, like memory, has its source in the desire to borrow the name of a phenomenon from its supposed cause. The idea naturally arises, without a doubt, of explaining the reproduction of mental formations once experienced together by the fact that these formations have entered into a close connection with each other and are now so internally connected with each other that one of them always entails the other. This mental connection is called association. Soul formations are said to be associated if they have ever previously been experienced together, and there is a more or less solid assumption that, under existing conditions, they can cause each other. At the same time, however, the term “association” is still used very often in a figurative sense. It denotes not only the intended internal cause reproduction, but this reproduction itself, the actual entry into consciousness of ideas as a result of a mental internal connection, and in this meaning it has almost completely replaced the term “reproduction” among many authors. So, for example, the pattern of the reproduction process that we have just formulated is usually called law of association. Although this expression has become commonly used, we will use it here, as far as possible, only in its own meaning.
In pursuit of brevity of formulation, this general law of association was initially given too much
narrow meaning, and it therefore needs significant expansion. If for the associative awakening of mental transformations it was strictly necessary that partial contents, once experienced in close connection with each other, return in exactly the same way as they once existed, then the soul would comparatively rarely be able to use its ability to expand and complement what what is directly given to her, for real equality is an exceptional phenomenon in the world. But the fact of the matter is that such complete equality is not required at all, and the extremely important significance of the process for our mental life is based precisely on this. The sensations or representations of a given moment at the present moment are not identical with those that once existed, but only similar to them, and yet they awaken the representations of mental formations that were once associated with them. If initially, for example, a group of formations was experienced abode, then repetition of terms A And b will awaken ideas corresponding to the rest of the members cde, but the same thing will happen if the corresponding reasons are not caused by formations in the soul ab, but only impressions similar to him al, bl. It goes without saying that this will happen the easier and more surely, the greater the similarity, and with more difficulty and less often, the smaller it is.
When a child learns to read, he remembers in connection with certain printed characters certain sounds and combinations of sounds. Subsequently, he will reproduce these sounds with the greatest confidence if he has exactly the same signs in front of him, but in most cases he will reproduce them even if they are a little larger or smaller, if the font is different, or even if they are equipped with some some decorations. In the same way, a child, having learned the name of a dog, applies it to cats and other four-legged animals, applies the name of a fly to mosquitoes and sparrows... When Christmas trees appear on the streets and you start buying all kinds of things for the holidays, you remember Christmas holidays of past years; making any journey, you remember the experiences of past travels, although the specific impressions, ideas, intentions with which you are animated are unlikely to ever exactly coincide with those that you had before... It is obvious, therefore, that the release of reproduced ideas in case of simple similarity
original terms or substitution of similar terms, as one might also say, must be recognized as a primary fact and not amenable to further analysis.
We find a somewhat different deviation of reproductions from previously existing experiences in the final terms, in the reproduced ideas themselves. They reproduce what was associated with the original members in previous experiences, but rarely reproduce it with the specific certainty, with the diversity with which they were experienced in reality. As we have already seen, ideas are always less accurate, more confused and full of gaps than sensations or previous ideas, which they reproduce to a certain extent, and therefore the reproduction of the past is always only approximately.
Until now we have only considered representations as the result of the reproduction process. We have already briefly mentioned that these ideas, both by their content and the nature of their connection, can in turn evoke certain feelings and that this can lead to associations that are of the greatest importance for the life of feelings. Here we will note in advance that under certain conditions, ideas also cause movements and that, as a result of this connection, actions can also be caused associatively and depending on previous experiences. This includes the mentioned saying of quotes or names that come to mind; sometimes it does not come to the full pronunciation of words, but is limited only to the movement of the lips and tongue. When you listen to the sounds of dancing or marching, you begin to move your head or arms and legs rhythmically.
2. Traditional Explanation. The traditional teaching about internal connection, about the association of ideas and the phenomenon of awakening based on this connection may at first glance seem much broader. It claims that the flow of ideas is regulated by four different principles: a transition is made from currently existing experiences - 1) to similar ideas, 2) to ideas the opposite contents, 3) to contents that were once previously spatially connected with currently existing impressions and 4) to contents that existed simultaneously with them. This doctrine recognizes, therefore, four laws of associations: by similarity,
by contrast, by spatial coexistence and by temporal connection. In this formulation, this teaching is as old as psychology itself; it can be found (from an incomplete passage in Plato's Phaedo) already in Aristotle (de mem. 2). True, this is mentioned here for practical purposes: to connect with this a discussion about how a person who wants to remember something should act. The enormous significance of this phenomenon for our entire mental life began to become more and more clear only from the middle of the 18th century (Hume, Hartley).
3. Studying the details. About 20 years ago, our knowledge of the phenomena of memory in a being was limited to the general laws we had analyzed and a little more definite, but partly only slightly reliable conclusions from the most everyday data of our experience. Since then experimental study managed to master the subject and find out a huge number of very important details. To give full review modern knowledge on this issue, it is therefore necessary to separate the material. We will have to separate the consideration of simple associations between two or more successive members from the consideration of more complex cases in which one representation is associated at the same time as many others. Simple associations or association series are then naturally divided into the following three parts: 1 - the emergence of associations due to the simultaneous existence of their members in the soul and their repetitions (recognition and memorization), 2 - the fate of associations after their first occurrence, their preservation and disappearance (remembering and forgetting), 3 - playback process. It can be recognized in advance that the distribution of individual phenomena under these headings is somewhat arbitrary. This separation of three points of view, which is very expedient in view of the clarity of the image, sometimes tears apart what is actually connected...
It will be advisable to say something about the methods of experimental research on the subject. In general they differ reproduction methods and recognition or comparison methods. The details of the experiment in the case of simple recognition are quite simple; they simply count in how many cases out of all possible this recognition occurs and in how many it does not occur. ...Reproduction methods are more varied.
1. If we're talking about only about the study of the process of reproduction and its path, then you can use the already existing associations formed in Everyday life. They evoke in the soul of the person being tested some impressions selected from certain points of view and then observe how they act further associatively, what ideas they awaken under various conditions, how much time they need for this, etc. But the study of this first formation and gradually changing associations is difficult and very troublesome; hitherto it has been produced in four different ways.
2. The simplest and most immediate method is to evoke in a person several impressions simultaneously or in immediate succession and then force him immediately or at any later time to indicate which of them he is able to reproduce in the original or any order. The ability for such reproduction is often called (according to Wernicke) ability to note(Merkfachigkeit). By comparing the number and nature of the reproduced impressions with the original data and establishing, perhaps, the time that was necessary for the entire act of reproduction, numerical data are obtained that characterize in a certain way the special conditions of memory or the characteristics of various individuals in this regard. To briefly describe this method, I will call it method of remembered terms. It requires relatively little time, simple aids, and at the same time it is the only method that makes it possible to use mass research (they force the memorized members not to pronounce, but to write down). But it is suitable for solving only a few questions: for solving other questions it provides only a rough and temporary orientation. A week ago I memorized a poem and now I have to show what I still remember from it; I remember maybe a few starting and ending lines. But this little does not at all represent a sufficiently correct measure of the spiritual state that remains with me from the poem. In fact, I only have to remind myself of certain words, the beginning of stanzas or poems, and it turns out that I am able to reproduce much more than without this help.
3. The second method gives much more diverse and more accurate results - memorization method. Repeatedly
imprint a number of members in memory, as, for example, when memorizing a poem, until the definite equal and easily recognizable effect, as long as, for example, the row can be spoken for the first time without errors and at the correct tempo. The measure of the working capacity of memory and the ability of various individuals to do so is then the number of repetitions necessary for memorization or even the amount of time required for this. At the same time, however, it is possible with the help of this method to obtain an account of associations that were created at any previous time and with any strength, but are now too weak to lead to direct reproduction. For this purpose, they are forced to memorize before the first reproduction series composed entirely or in part from such members associated ever before, and determine what savings occur in repetitions in comparison with memorization under equal conditions homogeneous series, between the members of which there are no associations yet (method of economy). As elements for constructing such series, it turned out to be convenient syllables without meaning, consisting of two consonants with one vowel or semi-vowel between them and so composed so that the same syllable would not be repeated soon and so that meaningful combinations would not be obtained...
4. The memorization method has two disadvantages: firstly, it requires relatively too much time and patience from those participating in the experiment; secondly, when repeatedly learning the series to be studied, the associated terms do not remain in the state in which knowledge of them can be of value, but they change only with the addition of new repetitions. More suitable in both respects is the method proposed and repeatedly tested by Müller and Pilsecker and built on the type of learning words or series - guessing method. Play several in front of a person
once the members to be associated, and then after some time reproduce in front of him only some individual members from the previously imprinted series with the requirement to indicate each time the next member; The correct answers received are then counted. This also has the advantage, if it seems useful, that it is possible to determine the thinking time that elapses between the recognition of the shown member and the reproduction of the corresponding next member; the resulting incorrect answers can also be used to make inferences about associative processes.
5. A certain contrast to this method is the following, which I myself have sometimes used with success. They force a person to reproduce a series that was previously imprinted to a certain extent, help him in places where he stops or mistakes are made, immediately telling him the necessary term, and then count the number of corrections that turned out to be necessary. By this method it is possible to establish in the most simple and direct manner the present state of incompletely associated series; I'll call him correction method.
From a more general point of view, these four reproduction methods can be divided into two classes. Or they leave existing associations, if possible, as they are, and try to somehow determine the reproduction effect that they can still cause. Or they first strengthen existing already weak associations until they cause a certain and always equal reproduction effect, and then measure the work required for this. The second class is formed from the methods of memorization and economy; the other three methods belong to the first. The methods of guessing and corrections then turn out to be improvements to the first and relatively primitive method (the method of memorized terms) - improvements that help to manifest associations that cannot appear due to the absence of the first term.
As for the relationship that exists between various methods, approximately the same thing can be said about it as we already said when discussing psychophysical methods. There is no method at all that is more convenient in all cases than all others, and therefore better; the feasibility of one or another method depends both on the issue to be resolved and on the conditions existing each time,
and from the person being researched. One should not even hope that studying the same problem using different methods will always give the same results. As will be shown later, the conditions in this regard sometimes turn out to be much less simple than might be expected at first glance. Of course, a pattern that appears under certain conditions is objectively always only one, but the conditions do not remain the same when different methods are used. Even if all external conditions remain exactly the same, then the intention, and therefore the entire spiritual state of the person being examined, does not remain the same. It is, for example, different if he has to capture something or reproduce it separately, different if he has to capture the entire series or only its members in pairs, and also different if he has to remember for just one moment or for a longer time.
Association formation
(Recognition and learning)
The Meaning of Repetitions. It is well known that for the internal connection of soul formations that must be reproduced, it is important, first of all, that they are experienced by the soul quite often simultaneously or in close succession, and the more often they are experienced, the more correct and confident they are reproduced and the more possible reproduction becomes them for the future. How many repetitions of certain experiences must there be in order for them to be reproduced subsequently at a certain moment? It is impossible to give general guidance on this matter. We only know that there are great differences here. Simple events that made a particularly strong impression can, after many years, enter consciousness with complete clarity and distinctness, having been experienced even just once; events are more complex and less interesting people can be experienced tens and hundreds of times, but their exact connection is not imprinted for a long time.
Only one case, especially easy to study, has been studied in more detail - this is the case when the reproduction of associated members occurs immediately after the moment of capturing them
(immediate memory). The ability for such reproduction begins immediately with a certain number of members; in other words, with appropriate attention, it is already enough just a one-time experience, in order to correctly and in the original order reproduce a more or less significant number of relatively simple and unrelated members. How large this number is depends, of course, on the character and, moreover, in a significant way depending on the degree of familiarity with members: meaningless syllables can be reproduced on average (i.e., equally often correctly and incorrectly) after a single reading and listening in the number 6-7, monosyllabic words in the number 8-9, numbers in the number 10-12.
The objective correctness of the reproduced series and the subjective consciousness of this correctness are not always connected with each other. Often a series proceeds as if you were not taking any part in it, and you are quite amazed when you subsequently hear from the leader of the experiment that the series proceeded absolutely correctly. But often the opposite happens: you think with pleasure that you said a number of things correctly, but then, unfortunately, you learn about one or another mistake made.
The reproduction results obtained in the case of the number of members of the series only slightly exceeding the maximum that a person can remember after a single familiarization are surprising. A person then does not remember as many terms as he could accurately remember in the case of shorter series. The inability to do more work causes some damage to the ability to do less, and the number of members of the series retained by memory after a single familiarization decreases. So, for example, when the number of meaningless syllables reaches twelve, a person is often able to reproduce the initial and final members of the series; in the case of longer series, nothing is often remembered. To obtain reproduction of the entire series, it is necessary to increase the number of repetitions, and this number, especially at the beginning, increases extremely quickly as the series lengthens. As I already mentioned, I myself am able to reproduce six meaningless syllables almost without errors after a single familiarization. In the case of rows (quickly read) of 12 syllables, I succeed only after 14 or 16 repetitions, in the case of rows of 26 syllables - only after 30, and in the case of rows of 36 syllables - only after 55 repetitions... However, there are people who generally show an inability to
more or less a certain time, no matter how long it may be, to memorize a more or less long meaningless series. They constantly get confused in one or another part of the series, and in the end they have to give up their attempts to reproduce it completely...
Impact of Individual Reps. In view of the confusion that results from the first repetition of longer rows, it is necessary to find out to what extent the row is imprinted with each repetition. To what extent do the first and subsequent repetitions help to ensure that the members of the series are connected with each other in such a way that it becomes possible to reproduce it without errors?
Some illumination of this issue was achieved by me using the method of economy. I carefully read the rows of 16 syllables 8, 16, 24, 32, etc. times, and 24 hours later I had them memorized until I could pronounce them correctly for the first time. The savings achieved in this case, up to a certain limit, were almost exactly proportional to the number of repetitions of the series made the day before: for each repetition made the day before, there were about two seconds saved during memorization, i.e., approximately ⅓ of the time required to read it once. Only after the number of repetitions significantly exceeded the number necessary for the first memorization of the series, their imprinting power became weaker and eventually turned out to be negligible...
Another point also plays a significant role: absolute the place occupied by members of a series. If the attention of the person being tested is left to himself, then it is first directed primarily to the beginning and end of the series to be memorized, and therefore they are remembered first of all. During experiments using the described method of corrections, I found how many corrections were necessary so that after carefully reading the series once, twice, three times, etc., one could immediately reproduce it at a certain pace... If we compare the amendments that turned out to be necessary for the first, second, third, etc. members, regardless of the number of previous readings, we get the following table:
The first terms of all the series given here were, without exception, reproduced without any help, both after one and after many terms, the second terms, as well as the last ones, were reproduced with a relatively small number of amendments. Thus, memorization begins at the beginning and at the end of the series (the same is confirmed by other observers), spreads quickly from the beginning in strong dependence on the chosen rhythm (here the chosen trochae) and more slowly from the end to the middle, reaching only the middle terms at the end.
The meaning of belonging to one whole. Of particular importance for the associative connection of impressions is whether they reach consciousness as unconnected sets of them or, despite their multitude, as parts of one single whole...
It doesn’t make much difference whether you have to memorize a series of one-syllable or two-syllable words: to memorize an equal number of members of both types, it turns out that approximately equal number repetitions. What is important is not so much the number of syllables or letters to be memorized, but rather the number or type of ideas they denote. It makes very little difference whether one has to learn rows of meaningless syllables or meaningless letters; an equal number of repetitions is sufficient for memorization approximately an equal number of both, although the number of letters memorized separately in the second case is, naturally, much larger...
Let's try to characterize with some number the connecting effect of meaning (in conjunction with rhythm and rhymes). The following data may provide some indication in this direction. I memorize the stanzas of the translation of Schiller's Aeneid after an average of 6-7 repetitions; each of them contains an average of 56 words or individual parts speech. If we subtract from here words that do not have independent meaning, such as prepositions, conjunctions, etc., then there remain another 36-40 ideas independent of each other, the combination of which into one single whole desired by the poet must be memorized. Since on average it took me 55 repetitions to memorize a series of 36 meaningless syllables, we can say that, since comparison is generally possible here, I learn meaningful verses approximately 9-10 times faster than meaningless words. Other observers received approximately the same attitude...
Accumulation and distribution of repetitions. While researching the influence of repeated repetitions on the learning and memorization of meaningless series and syllables, I noticed one very remarkable phenomenon. The research was carried out in two different ways. The first method was this: first, rows of 12 syllables were memorized until the first error-free reproduction, then they were carefully read three times as many times as before, and 24 hours later they were memorized until complete reproduction. The second method was this: rows of syllables of the same kind were simply learned by heart over several days, and every day, until the first playback. There was a striking difference in the number of repetitions necessary to obtain a certain result. With the first method, individual rows were learned on average after 17 repetitions and then read another 51 times; in total, therefore, they were repeated 68 times; 24 hours later, approximately 7 more repetitions were needed to play them for the first time. With the second method, individual rows accounted for an average of 17.5 in subsequent days; 12; 8.5 repetitions until the first error-free playback; on the fourth day it was possible after 5 repetitions. It turned out, therefore, that 68 repetitions undertaken immediately one after the other were less useful for the new learning of the series subsequently than 38 repetitions distributed over 3 days; or it can be expressed this way: the beneficial effect of 51 repetitions immediately after the first memorization of a series turned out to be less favorable for later memorization than the beneficial effect of 20 repetitions alone, divided into 2 groups with a time interval of 24 hours. Let us also take into account that with the first method, the method of aggregating repetitions, all repetitions could have their effect after 24 hours, and with the second method, the method of distributing repetitions, for the most part after a time 2 and 3 times longer, so that in in the second case, their effect should have been greatly weakened due to the forgetfulness of the person being tested, and we will have to admit benefits from distributing repetitions to strengthen the associations they create very significant.
At the request of Mr. Müller, Jost investigated this phenomenon in more detail and significantly enriched our knowledge about it... He
found that in the case of series, which generally require more to learn the number of repetitions and their distribution turns out to be more profitable the more widely it is carried out. If 24 repetitions of rows of 12 syllables were distributed in groups of 4 over 6 days, then subsequently testing the rows by guessing gave much better results. top scores than in the case of distributing them in 8 repetitions over 3 days; when distributed in 2 repetitions over 12 days, the results were better than when distributed over 6 days...
Based on other experiments, Jost establishes the following rule: in the case of two associated series of different ages but equal strength(i.e. if, with appropriate research, they give an equal number of guesses) new repetition brings greater benefit to the older series. Thus, the benefit from a large distribution of a given number of repetitions here is explained by the fact that their imprinting power turns out to be useful mainly for older associations. Now the question arises as to what is the further reason for this advantage of the older series, but I will return to this question later.
The instinct of practice, as we know, has long figured out the significance of the distribution of repetitions for the formation and strengthening of associations. Every student knows that it is unprofitable to memorize in the evening. necessary rules and verses through repeated repetitions and, on the contrary, it is very useful to read them several more times the next morning. No reasonable teacher would distribute all the class work evenly over the entire school year, leaving a few weeks for single or double repetition. Nevertheless, experimental research into the issue is also of great importance...
Attention and interest. It would hardly have been possible to postpone so long the mention of these factors, so important for the formation of associations, if it were not to be assumed that everyone would silently take them into account insofar as they matter. That when gaining experience and memorizing various objects, on the one hand, a sufficient number of repetitions is important, but next to this it is also important that a person thinks about it, so that his attention is drawn and focused on it - all these are such obvious facts that no a person who
I wouldn't know them well. Attention is, in a certain respect, even a more important factor: with increased attention, the number of repetitions can be significantly reduced, while the lack of sufficient concentration of attention, at least in the case of large groups or long series of impressions, often cannot be compensated for by any number of repetitions no matter how big it is...
What matters most here is the sensual tone and the interest associated with it. Experiences accompanied by strong pleasure or displeasure are ineradicably, so to speak, imprinted and often after many years are remembered with great clarity. What a person is especially interested in, he remembers without much difficulty; everything else is forgotten with amazing ease. This manifests itself especially sharply in adulthood, when many interests fill our soul. The same is true in small things. When memorizing meaningless syllables or unrelated words, the parts that are remembered are predominantly those that are for some reason especially noticeable, strange-sounding, for example, or rare.
But at the same time, there is a very important difference between feelings of one and the other kind. The associative power of pleasure must be recognized as significantly greater than that of displeasure. In the case of the simultaneous existence of many causes of sensations or ideas, it is especially easy to reach consciousness, as we have seen, both those that cause pleasure and those that cause displeasure. But when connections, into which they enter, appear in the soul, thanks to their sensory tone, experiences, both among themselves and with their environment, and during the processes of reproduction based on these connections, experiences accompanied by pleasure find themselves in a predominant position. “Hope and remembrance,” says Jean Paul, “are the essence of a rose one origin with reality, but without thorns." The thorns can still be felt very strongly when they prick, they can respond for a very long time and very often depending on the degree of injury, but nevertheless they are gradually remembered weaker and weaker. And no matter how great they are your disappointments, you still continue to draw a future for yourself, guided not by your bitter experience, but by the experience of success and joy.
From a certain point of view, human thoughts have the possibility of choice; they prefer the direction leading to what is pleasant. The possibility of different paths is always given to them only by previous experience and the associations created on its basis, but which path they choose is determined, other things being equal, by the greater pleasantness of individual paths. It is in this fact that, by the way, the reconciling, all-healing power of time, as well as the ideas of each old generation about the “good old time”, partly finds its explanation...
Existence and disappearance of association
(Remembering and Forgetting)
If some mental formations, imprinted in the soul by the experience of life or by deliberate memorization, are left to themselves for a while and then recalled again, as far as possible, in consciousness, then it turns out that during this time two kinds of changes have occurred in them. First, some individual members of the imprinted connections gradually changed; the reproduced ideas do not fully correspond to the original experiences, the place of which they nevertheless occupy. And secondly, the associative connections formed between them weakened; mutual reproduction of members does not occur with the same speed and confidence, but it turns out to be confused or stops completely. We already have some more detailed information about both processes.
Individual Member Changes. 1. Who among us does not know that the images of memory gradually become more and more unclear and vague. You remember that yesterday you met a gentleman wearing some kind of red vest that caught your eye. But what kind of red it was, whether it had a tint of yellow or bluish, you no longer remember. No one will buy new material for an existing dress, relying only on his memory: he can always make a mistake within certain limits...
The first stages of this erasure process, as it may be called, have been studied in numerous studies and for various types of impressions. So, for example, Wolfe compared tones of average height with tones of the same number of vibrations or four units different with different time intervals between them and found that after two seconds the number of cases, the objective equality of which was
correctly recognized was 94%, after 10 seconds - 78 and after 60 seconds - about 60%. Lehmann used gray disks for this purpose, the brightness of which varied by 1/15; after 5 seconds this difference was recognized by one observer in all cases, after 30 seconds only in 5/6, and after 2 minutes - only in ½ of the cases...
There has, of course, been no shortage of attempts to extend these studies to large gaps time than seconds and minutes. But here a completely unexpected result was obtained: the studies did not indicate further change, i.e., with a further increase in time, the uncertainty of the comparison barely changed. Moreover, in some cases, when assessing, for example, various values per eye or time intervals, it was not possible to establish any relationship at all between the comparing judgment and, therefore, the image of memory, conceivable in a certain connection with it, on the one hand, and time, on the other... It is obvious that here certain complicating factors play a certain role, obscuring, under certain conditions, the process of increasing inaccuracy of our images of memory , so we can no longer establish it using our research methods. What kind of conditions are these, in general and essential features was clarified by precise observation of how, perhaps in most cases, various impressions are remembered and compared with related impressions given subsequently. If I want to notice to myself the color of a red ribbon lying in front of me, then I will only remember the exact shade and brightness of this red color for a very long time. a short time; and the more time passes after this, the more uncertainty I will find when it comes to choosing this particular red color among other various shades. But if I consciously perceived only the color as red and, perhaps, also named it mentally, then the uncertainty of the later comparative judgment is thereby introduced into certain narrow boundaries; Until the very distant future I am not in danger, since I still remember the color, mix it with brown or pink. The general significance of this fact can be expressed as follows: a given separate and preserved memory impression does not remain in my soul as some isolated formation, which in the course of time becomes only
more and more uncertain; No, it immediately becomes in a certain relation to some more general idea, which, as a result of exercise, has become more familiar to us. It is perceived in a certain category and for the most part is also designated by the corresponding word. The subsequently given similar impression is then compared not so much with the image of the memory of the first impression - an image that has already lost its definiteness to a certain extent - but with the category to which I attributed this impression; I also assign the second impression to a certain category and then compare both categories. I directly perceive various shades of gray as bright, very bright, etc.; various colors - like grass green, lemon yellow, etc.; loads - heavy, not very heavy, very light; I evaluate spatial quantities in relation to them, for example, to centimeters; I evaluate time quantities from the point of view of their relation to seconds or to some tempo, etc. These same rubrics, if only they are stored in memory, do not change at all with over time. Therefore, when comparing later impressions with them, we find how as if always the same uncertainty previous experience, that is, precisely the breadth of the general idea thanks to which it was perceived.
Weakening of the association connection. All associations ever created gradually disappear. This means that the members of an associative connection, evoked in consciousness for one reason or another, over time cause more and more meager and full of gaps ideas about the remaining members of this connection; in other words, over time, more and more labor is required to raise this connection to a certain spiritual height, so that it can be, for example, accurately reproduced. In its general character, this process proceeds exactly like the one just described, in which the individual members become more and more defined: first extremely quickly, then more slowly and, finally, very slowly. But, apparently, the process never stops completely, but develops, of course, if there is no repetition of impressions, quite correctly, until the associative connection is completely destroyed. The development of this process in detail is very easy to follow using
method of economy: they establish what minimum repetitions are necessary at various later times in order to re-learn things that have been memorized. To give an approximate idea of this, I will present here the results of a long series of experiments that I obtained with 13-membered series. If we express the hours saved during subsequent memorization as a percentage of the hours required for the first memorization of the same series, we obtain that during subsequent memorization.
As this is especially clearly expressed in our graphic diagram (Fig. 1), the associative connection created by the process of memorization first falls steeply from the achieved height, and then continues to fall very slowly: after one hour, more than half of the initial work is needed to reproduce the series, and after one month this work increases to only 4/5.
In the case of longer series, for the first memorization of which comparatively more work is required, the process of forgetting, as if in compensation for this great work, occurs at a slower rate. But it happens much more slowly in the case of meaningful things; meaning, which greatly facilitates the first memorization, and subsequently binds members together much more strongly than various associative connections can do. Thus, I learned the stanzas of Byron's Don Juan by heart 24 hours later for the second time with a 50% savings in repetitions, whereas with the above-mentioned series of syllables this savings was no more than 34%. Apparently, even after very long periods of time, things do not reach the point of complete disruption of such associations. I recently re-learned a significant number of Byron's stanzas mentioned, which I had memorized before first playing them for the first time 22 years ago and which have never come across to me since. Required
for new memorization, their time was on average 7% less than for memorizing other stanzas of the same poem, which had never been memorized before. The savings were much more significant in the case of stanzas learned by heart, each time before the first playback, not just once, but many times, precisely over the course of 4 consecutive days, which required approximately twice as many repetitions as for the first memorization. 17 years later, the same stanzas were relearned with a savings of almost 20% compared to new stanzas. There was no conscious recollection of certain details here, just as there were none in the first mentioned case, nevertheless, traces of the associations created so long ago sometimes appeared to immediate consciousness in the amazing speed with which it was possible to regain mastery of the poem .
In order to obtain the most uniform reproduction of individual terms, at least in the case of series that are devoid of meaning, it is advisable to show them before your eyes not several side by side, as is the case with ordinary memorization, but with the help of suitable device one by one, one after another. Further, for a calmer perception of individual members, it is most advisable to change them in jumps, as this can be done, for example, using the apparatus proposed by Wirth.
Today I want to tell you about how you can effectively use the method of the scientist Hermann Ebbinghaus, namely repeating the information received. The German scientist Hermann Ebbinghaus was the first to develop a formula for effectively memorizing information by repeating it in several stages.
I immediately remember the ancient Greek proverb “Repetition is the mother of learning.”
The scientist conducted experiments regarding his memory. He took syllables that were not associated with anything (shod, hib, vyb, etc.), and carefully tried to remember them. After a certain time, he tried to accurately reproduce the entire list of syllables. Through his experiments he discovered very useful things. Namely:
after 20 minutes, 40% of the information is forgotten, after an hour - 50%, a day - 70%.
It’s not hard to guess that all of our received information, which has been poorly absorbed, evaporates, like water when heated, and this happens mostly at night, during sleep, when the body, after a hard day, tries to rest and throw off all the unnecessary load, as it seems to it. information accumulated over the past day.
This simple method allows you to remember much more information.
This method is required when studying any foreign language. After all, as you know, our memory tries to get rid of everything unnecessary as soon as possible. And information that we repeat several times, the brain begins to perceive as important, and important information lingers in our memory much longer.
Remember school years, are the most commonly used everyday words in English language were remembered instantly. Take, for example, words such as: mom, car, buy, go, bye, etc. In other words, information first enters temporary memory and if it is not repeated after that, it is instantly forgotten.
But if we use the Ebbinghaus method, we transfer our vocabulary from temporary memory to long-term memory. Thus, increasing our vocabulary, and at the first opportunity in a conversation with a native speaker, we can easily remember the words or phrases we need.
Whether or not to use this method is up to you. In turn, I would like to add an interesting fact. Children in Chinese schools write down characters many times. But as adults they forget some of it. You can often see the Chinese reaching for their phones to remember how to write this or that hieroglyph. This is another proof that those characters that are rarely found in everyday life are forgotten, even if the character is Chinese, and you yourself are Chinese.
I can’t help but remember another example from my own life. Everyone probably remembers this difficult time at school, when we had to learn what seemed like a huge multiplication table at that time. Everyone probably had numbers that simply did not want to be remembered. Personally, my example was 7*8=56. I still remember how my parents tried to help me memorize this example. They asked me what seven times eight would be at the most unexpected moments: when I just woke up, when I ate, when I came home from school, when I was watching TV, and all this happened within a few days. Since then, I have always remembered in my life that 7 times 8 equals 56!
