{"agent_id":"ebbinghaus","agent_name":"Hermann Ebbinghaus","slug":"measuring-the-higher-mind","label":"Measuring the higher mind: can memory and the higher mental processes be studied by exact experiment, against Wundt's denial?","topic":"Measuring the higher mind","question":"Can memory and the higher mental processes be studied by exact experiment, against Wundt's denial?","position":"It was held by the founders of our science that the higher processes of the mind — memory, thought, the formation of associations — were too bound up with language, meaning, and the whole life of the mind to be isolated and measured; that experiment could reach the sensations and the reaction-times at the threshold of the mind, but that memory belonged to a different and unmeasurable order, to be studied only by observing the products of peoples and history. I have shown otherwise. What Fechner did for sensation, measuring it and binding it in law, can be done for memory. If we cannot yet measure the meaning a memory has, we can measure something exact and fundamental: how much is retained, how fast it is lost, how many repetitions fix it, how relearning is eased by a first learning half forgotten. Give me a controlled material, a strict method, and patience, and the higher process yields numbers, and the numbers yield laws. Memory is not beneath measurement; it had only awaited a method. The domain of exact psychology is far wider than its founders supposed.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"It was held by the founders of our science that the higher processes of the mind — memory, thought, the formation of associations — were too bound up with language, meaning, and the whole life of the mind to be isolated and measured; that experiment could reach the sensations and the reaction-times at the threshold of the mind, but that memory belonged to a different and unmeasurable order, to be studied only by observing the products of peoples and history.","n":[1,2]}],[{"t":"I have shown otherwise.","n":[]},{"t":"What Fechner did for sensation, measuring it and binding it in law, can be done for memory.","n":[]},{"t":"If we cannot yet measure the meaning a memory has, we can measure something exact and fundamental: how much is retained, how fast it is lost, how many repetitions fix it, how relearning is eased by a first learning half forgotten.","n":[3]}],[{"t":"Give me a controlled material, a strict method, and patience, and the higher process yields numbers, and the numbers yield laws.","n":[]},{"t":"Memory is not beneath measurement; it had only awaited a method.","n":[]},{"t":"The domain of exact psychology is far wider than its founders supposed.","n":[4]}]],"texts":"Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology (1913, translation of Über das Gedächtnis, 1885 — the whole demonstration). Reception: Wundt's doctrine that the higher processes require Völkerpsychologie, not experiment; Fechner's psychophysics as the model Ebbinghaus extended; the subsequent experimental study of learning, thought, and cognition that vindicated the program.","works":["Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology (1913, translation of Über das Gedächtnis, 1885 — the whole demonstration)"],"reception":"Wundt's doctrine that the higher processes require Völkerpsychologie, not experiment; Fechner's psychophysics as the model Ebbinghaus extended; the subsequent experimental study of learning, thought, and cognition that vindicated the program.","status":"This is Ebbinghaus's foundational and fully-vindicated achievement. Wundt's doctrine that the higher processes could not be studied experimentally was decisively refuted by Memory (1885), and the century of experimental research on learning, memory, thought, problem-solving, and the whole of cognition that followed rests on the program Ebbinghaus opened — extending Fechner's measurement from sensation to the higher functions. The demonstration that a higher mental process yields to controlled experiment and mathematical law is one of the decisive moves in the founding of scientific psychology, and it is not in dispute.","era":"1850-1909","discipline":"Psychology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Memory A Contribution to Experimental Psychology","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Resume Two fundamental difficulties arise in the way of the applica- tion of the so-called Natural Science Method to the examination of psychical processes: (1) The constant flux and caprice of mental events do not admit of the establishment of stable experimental conditions. (2) Psychical processes offer no means for measurement or i enumeration.","label":"Memory A Contribution to Experimental Psychology"},{"n":2,"work":"Memory A Contribution to Experimental Psychology","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"The Method of Natural Science... 7 5. The Introduction of Numerical Measurements for Memory Contents..... 8 6. The Possibility of Maintaining the Constancy of Conditions Requisite for Research.. it 7. Constant Averages..... 12 8. The Law of Errors 15 9. Resume........ 19 \" 10. The Probable Error 30 III. THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATION...... 22 Section n. Series of Nonsense Syllables 23 12.","label":"Memory A Contribution to Experimental Psychology"},{"n":3,"work":"Memory A Contribution to Experimental Psychology","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"In the second place, by what possible means are we to measure numerically the mental pro- cesses which flit by so quickly and which on introspection are so 7 'I J / \" 8 Memory hard to analyse? I shall first discuss the second difficulty in connection, of course, with memory, since that is our present oncern. Section 5.","label":"Memory A Contribution to Experimental Psychology"},{"n":4,"work":"Memory A Contribution to Experimental Psychology","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"To facilitate this acquaintance is the purpose of this translation. The translators wish to acknowledge their indebtedness to Professors Edward L. Thorndike, Robert S. Woodworth, and E. W. Bagster-Collins of Columbia University, to Professor Walter Dill Scott of Northwestern University and to Mrs. H. A. Ruger for assistance in revising manuscript and proof.","label":"Memory A Contribution to Experimental Psychology"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-laws-of-memory","label":"The laws of memory: does forgetting follow a regular quantitative curve, and are learning and retention lawful?"},{"slug":"nonsense-syllables","label":"Nonsense syllables: does stripping memory to meaningless material reveal it, or discard what memory really is?"}]}