BEYOND THE FIRST LABORATORY: EVOLUTION

Psychology in Germany One of Wundt’s contemporaries who believed that higher mental processes could be the object of experimental investigation was Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909). Inspired by the psychophysics of G. T. Fechner and philosopher J. F.
Herbart’s attempt to apply mathematics to mental representations, Ebbinghaus used precise quantitative methods to investigate memory (Murray, 1976). He served as both the experimenter and the subject of his investigations. In order to have relatively homogeneous material to learn and to reduce the impact of any previous semantic associations, such as occurred in his early experiments in learning and remembering
poetry, Ebbinghaus developed the “nonsense syllable,” largely pronounceable consonant-vowel-consonant combinations. He created syllable lists of various lengths that he learned and then later relearned after different lengths of time. The percentage of time saved in relearning the lists became known as the “savings method” of memory (Murray, 1976; Hoffman, Bringmann, Bamberg, & Klein, 1987). Ebbinghaus found that the amount of time spent in relearning lists was greater for longer lists and for longer retention intervals. The graph of his results became the standard curve of forgetting, still reproduced in textbooks as a classic result. The curve showed that recall of learned lists was perhaps 85% after one hour, approximately 50% after one day, and as little as 15% after about six days. These findings stimulated a long tradition of memory research (e.g., Postman, 1968). After publication of his monograph Über das Gedächtnis (On Memory), Ebbinghaus established laboratories at several universities and attracted some American students, but his time was increasingly devoted to a editing a journal and writing (Fuchs, 1997). Leadership of memory research fell to Georg Elias Müller (1850–1931) at Göttingen University. Müller, a dedicated experimentalist, invented the memory drum, a mechanical device for presenting one verbal stimulus at a time, used in conjunction with experiments on serial list learning and list retention. The memory drum, modified subsequently by Müller for research in paired associate learning (Haupt, 1998), became a standard piece of laboratory equipment for studies of verbal learning and memory until replaced by the computer. Müller’s research reports on his studies of memory extended from 1893 to 1917 and included “the theoretical contributions of retroactive inhibition, perseveration, and consolidation” (Murray & Bandomir, 2000). Müller initiated what later was termed the interference theory of forgetting, a position that argues that forgetting is a function of the interference among competing memories at the time that a particular memory is being retrieved and not a function of a decay or loss of memory traces (Murray, 1988). The topic was not addressed directly by Ebbinghaus, but the rapid forgetting that his retention curve recorded has been interpreted as offering evidence of the role of interference in memory (Murray, 1988; Underwood, 1957). Müller’s experimental interests were not limited to memory research. He built on the contributions of Fechner, Ewald Hering, and Mary Whiton Calkins in becoming a leader in the development of the methodology of psychophysics, conducting studies on color vision and investigating paired-associate
verbal learning (Blumenthal, 1985b; Murray, 1976). His laboratory was well supplied with experimental apparatus (Haupt, 1998) and attracted a number of psychologists to
pursue research with him. Müller’s laboratory seems to have been especially hospitable to women interested in psychology; among those studying at Göttingen were, for example, Americans Mary Whiton Calkins, Eleanor Gamble, and Lillien Jane Martin. Other laboratories and universities were less open in this regard (Furumoto, 1987; Scarborough & Furumoto, 1987).