A SCIENCE OF MEMORY
• Herman Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)
– Prussian philosopher
– Steeped in British empiricist approach
– “Uber das Gedachtnis” (1885)
• First experimental work on memory
• Introduces basic controlled methods
– Describes basic memory phenomena
• Learning and forgetting functions
• List-length effects and STM span
• Serial position and spacing effects
• Remote and backward associations
• Importance of meaningfulness and
organization
– Contrasts effortful and automatic retrieval
– Contrasts explicit and implicit memory
– Overall, though, little theoretical work on
memory processes
GO-1
POV
DET
ZON
FIP
MEB
DOZ
KAL
VAM
TUP
GIS
END
GO-2
POV
DET
ZON
FIP
MEB
DOZ
KAL
VAM
TUP
GIS
END
GO-3
POV
DET
ZON
FIP
MEB
DOZ
KAL
VAM
TUP
GIS
END
GO-T
GIS
TUP
VAM
KAL
DOZ
MEB
FIP
ZON
DET
POV
END
REMOTE ASSOCIATIONS
(Ebbinghaus, 1885)
• 16 cvc’s studied to criterion
• Two day retention interval
• Second list learned to criterion
• Percent savings =
(Old – New) / Old
Second list structure
intact
skip 1 (1,3,5..)
skip 2
skip 3
skip 5
random
33%
11%
7%
6%
3%
0.5%
A SCIENCE OF MEMORY
(cont’d)
• Alfred Binet (1857 – 1911)
– French physician / scientist
– Focus on school learning and
ability
– Study memory for coherent prose
• Coherence effects
• Importance effects
• Acoustic and semantic codes for
STM and LTM
• Richard Semon (1859 – 1918)
– German “natural philosopher”
– Memory in a bio-evolutionary
frame
• The Mneme (1904)
– Stresses retrieval as synthesis of the
trace (“engram”) and cues: ecphory
• Mnemic Psychology (1909)
– Banished from academics and
ignored
A SCIENCE OF MEMORY
(cont’d)
• Frederic Bartlett (1886 – 1969)
– British psychologist
– Memory in a social context
– Uses meaningful stories and
complex objects as stimuli
– Memory as constructive
• Role of background knowledge and
“schemas” of organized concepts
• Potential for distortion and errors
• Theodule Ribot (1839 – 1916)
– French (neuro)psychologist
– Organic (skill) versus psychological
memories (procedural / declarative)
– Noted diversity of “amnesias” and
argued for dissociable systems
• Diseases of Memory (1887)
– Most recently acquired memories most
vulnerable to loss (Ribot’s Law)
• Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
– Constructivist view of
remembering
• Field versus observer
perspectives
– Stresses automatic,
preconscious processes
– Repression as a
mechanism of forgetting
• Inhibits painful memories
• “leaks” of repressed memory
surface in other thoughts (implicit
memory) and behaviors
(hysteria)
– Therapy through bringing these
memories to consciousness
(catharsis)
– Controversy over “motivated
forgetting” and its mechanisms
continues
The War of the Ghosts
(Original Script)
One night two young men from Egulac went down to the
river to hunt seals and while they were there it became
foggy and calm. Then they heard war-cries, and they
thought: "Maybe this is a war-party". They escaped to
the shore, and hid behind a log. Now canoes came up,
and they heard the noise of paddles, and saw one
canoe coming up to them. There were five men in the
canoe, and they said:
"What do you think? We wish to take you along. We are
going up the river to make war on the people."
One of the young men said,"I have no arrows."
"Arrows are in the canoe," they said.
"I will not go along. I might be killed. My relatives do not
know where I have gone. But you," he said, turning to
the other, "may go with them."
(continued…)
So one of the young men went, but the other returned
home.
And the warriors went on up the river to a town on the
other side of Kalama. The people came down to the
water and they began to fight, and many were killed. But
presently the young man heard one of the warriors say,
"Quick, let us go home: that Indian has been hit." Now
he thought: "Oh, they are ghosts." He did not feel sick,
but they said he had been shot.
So the canoes went back to Egulac and the young man
went ashore to his house and made a fire. And he told
everybody and said: "Behold I accompanied the ghosts,
and we went to fight. Many of our fellows were killed,
and many of those who attacked us were killed. They
said I was hit, and I did not feel sick."
He told it all, and then he became quiet. When the sun
rose he fell down. Something black came out of his
mouth. His face became contorted. The people jumped
up and cried.
He was dead.
Recalling The War of the Ghosts
•'Something black came from his mouth' tended to
become 'he frothed at the mouth', 'he vomited' or
'breath escaped from his mouth'.
•'Hunting seals' tended to become 'fishing'.
•'Canoe' tended to become 'boat' and 'paddles' to
become 'oars'.
•The wounded Indian tended to become the hero,
whose wounds were sometimes even 'bathed' at
the end.
•The reference by the Indian who stayed to the
possibility of getting killed tended to be
downplayed or dropped, whilst the reference to
the probable anxiety of his relatives was usually
given greater emphasis (the reference to having
no arrows was often omitted).
•The role of 'the ghosts' shifted (for some, they
become a clan called the Ghosts; for others they
were simply imagined by the Indian when
wounded).