When we read how one mediæval saint stood erect in his cell for a week
without sleep or food, merely chewing a plantain-leaf out of humility,
so as not to be too perfect; how another remained all night up to his
neck in a pond that was freezing over; and how others still performed
for the glory of God feats no less tasking to their energies, we are
inclined to think, that, with the gods of yore, the men, too, have
departed, and that the earth is handed over to a race whose will has
become as feeble as its faith. But we ought not to yield to these
instigations, by which the evil one tempts us to disparage our own
generation. The gods have somewhat changed their shape, 'tis true, and
the men their minds; but both are still alive and vigorous as ever for
an eye that can look under superficial disguises. The human energy no
longer freezes itself in fish-ponds, and starves itself in cells; but
near the north pole, in central Africa, on Alpine "couloirs," and
especially in what are nowadays called "psycho-physical laboratories,"
it maybe found as invincible as ever, and ready for every fresh
demand. To most people a north pole expedition would be an easy task
compared with those ineffably tedious measurements of simple mental
processes of which Ernst Heinrich Weber set the fashion some forty
years ago, and the necessity of extending which in every possible
direction becomes more and more apparent to students of the mind.
Think of making forty thousand estimates of which is the heavier of
two weights, or seventy thousand answers as to whether your skin is
touched at two points or at one, and then tabulating and
mathematically discussing your results! Insight is to be gained at no
less price than this. The new sort of study of the mind bears the same
relation to the older psychology that the microscopic anatomy of the
body does to the anatomy of its visible form, and the one will
undoubtedly be as fruitful and as indispensable as the other.
Dr. Ebbinghaus[1] makes an original addition to heroic psychological
literature in the little work whose title we have given. For more than
two years he has apparently spent a considerable time each day in
committing to memory sets of meaningless syllables, and trying to
trace numerically the laws according to which they were retained or
forgotten. Most of his results, we are sorry to say, add nothing to
our gross experience of the matter. Here, as in the case of the
saints, heroism seems to be its own reward. But the incidental results
are usually the most pregnant in this department; and two of those
which Dr. Ebbinghaus has reached seems to us to amply justify his
pains. The first is, that, in _forgetting_ such things as these lists
of syllables, the loss goes on very much more rapidly at first than
later on. He measured the loss by the number of seconds required to
_relearn_ the list after it had been once learned. Roughly speaking,
if it took a thousand seconds to learn the list, and five hundred to
relearn it, the loss between the two learnings would have been
one-half. Measured in this way, full half of the forgetting seems to
occur within the first half-hour, while only four-fifths is forgotten
at the end of a month. The nature of this result might have been
anticipated, but hardly its numerical proportions.
[Footnote 1: "Ueber das Gedächtniss. Untersuchungen zur
experimentellen Psychologie." Von Herm.
Ebbinghaus. Leipzig: Duncker u. Humblot, 1885. 10+169 pp. 8vo.]
The other important result relates to the question whether ideas are
recalled only by those that previously came immediately before them,
or whether an idea can possibly recall another idea, with which it was
never in _immediate_ contact, without passing through the intermediate
mental links. The question is of theoretic importance with regard to
the way in which the process of "association of ideas" must be
conceived; and Dr. Ebbinghaus' attempt is as successful as it is
original, in bringing two views, which seem at first sight
inaccessible to proof, to a direct practical test, and giving the
victory to one of them. His experiments conclusively show that an idea
is not only "associated" directly with the one that follows it, and
with the rest _through that_, but that it is _directly_ associated
with _all_ that are near it, though in unequal degrees. He first
measured the time needed to impress on the memory certain lists of
syllables, and then the time needed to impress lists of the same
syllables with gaps between them. Thus, representing the syllables by
numbers, if the first list was 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 13, 14, 15, 16, the
second would be 1, 3, 5 ... 15, 2, 4, 6 ... 16, and so forth, with
many variations.
Now, if 1 and 3 in the first list were learned in that order merely by
1 calling up 2, and by 2 calling up 3, leaving out the 2 ought to
leave 1 and 3 with no tie in the mind; and the second list ought to
take as much time in the learning as if the first list had never been
heard of. If, on the other hand, 1 has a _direct_ influence on 3 as
well as on 2, that influence should be exerted even when 2 is dropped
out; and a person familiar with the first list ought to learn the
second one more rapidly than otherwise he could. This latter case is
what actually occurs; and Dr. Ebbinghaus has found that syllables
originally separated by as many as seven intermediaries still reveal,
by the increased rapidity with which they are learned in order, the
strength of the tie that the original learning established between
them, over the heads, so to speak, of all the rest. It may be that
this particular series of experiments is the entering wedge of a new
method of incalculable reach in such questions. The future alone can
show. Meanwhile, when we add to Dr. Ebbinghaus' "heroism" in the
pursuit of true averages, his high critical acumen, his modest tone,
and his polished style, it will be seen that we have a new-comer in
psychology from whom the best may be expected.--_W.J., Science._
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