Towards the end of the 19th Century, a German man with a large beard and a deep interest in science, decided to carry out an experiment. By today’s rigorous scientific standards, his experiment was remarkably flawed, but we can still see evidence of his work on thousands of websites all around the world.
This man was called Herman Ebbinghaus and he was interested in memory. Or better still, how bad it is and how easily we forget. Despite the fact his experiment took place at his house, with only himself as both the participant and the researcher, we have to salute Ebbinghaus for trying to put memory capacity to the test.
How to Remember what we learn
What did Ebbinghaus do?
Ebbinghaus created long lists of ‘nonsense’ words in German. These were one-syllable ‘words’ that had no meaning. He didn’t want them to have meaning because he was interested in how effective we are at remembering, and (this is the science bit) he didn’t want his results to be influenced by the fact that some words are easier to remember than others because they may depict images that are inherently easier to remember.
Once he had his long list of nonsense words, he then sat down and attempted to memorize them. Once he had done that, he tested himself to see how many ‘words’ he could remember.
He tested himself immediately after learning. One hour after learning. One day after learning. Two days after learning …..up to seven days after learning.
His results showed that immediately after learning, he remembered well over 90% of the words, yet after 7 days, he had forgotten 80% of the words.
What was his conclusion?
Over time we forget information. Ebbinghaus found that up to 80% of the information we learn may be forgotten after one week. This means that if you have an English class on Mondays and write down a list of new vocabulary that comes up in the class, you will only remember up to 20% of the words the following week. Not an encouraging statistic!
Ebbinghaus called this tendency to forget, The Forgetting Curve. Although his findings may seem obvious, he was the first person to prove ‘scientifically’ that we forget information over time. And he didn’t just stop with the Forgetting Curve. Ebbinghaus added something to his experiment. It is this addition that gives us hope as learners! What he did was, he added sporadic reviews – that is he allowed himself to review the lists over time. He then tested himself. He found that repeated reviews meant that the forgetting curve got flatter and flatter the more it was reviewed.
The conclusion: The more we review, the less we forget.
Again, it is true that this may seem obvious, but I think that we (ironically) forget to add this element to our learning. We march on with lists of new vocabulary, or lists of new grammar items, but adding and adding to lists without reviewing our ‘old lists’ means that we are only temporarily learning new information. To make the information stick permanently, we need to be constantly reviewing or revisiting the new information. Here we give you some tips about how to build revision into your day-to-day life.
Reviewing Tips
Reviewing doesn’t have to mean sitting at a computer. Here are some different ways we can review something that we want to learn, whether it’s a list of new vocabulary, the order of a presentation, or a mathematical formula.
- Recording voice messages
Record a voice message containing the information that you want to learn and play it back when you are on the bus or walking the dog. These short reviews mean you don’t have to interrupt what you are doing and can be repeated as often as required. - Photos
Take photos of your notes so that you can look back over the information whenever you have a spare moment. This doesn’t have to be a long process; reviewing is just revisiting the information to deepen the memory. - AI
Use an AI tool to generate exercises to test yourself on the information. For example, you can put a list of vocabulary into ChatGPT and ask it to generate an exercise to practise. You can ask for the answer key to be generated too. Making your own personalised tests can be a great way to review. - Teaching
Sharing with someone else what you are learning is a great way of sharing knowledge and reinforcing it at the same time. We have to really know what we are talking about if we try to teach someone else all about it. - Mind Maps
Making something visual with new information is great for making it more memorable. This is because it stimulates the brain’s visual cortex. Our visual memories tend to be strong and creating a visual with new information helps to cement it in our memories.
Try some of these methods of reviewing and let’s see if we can get Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve as flat as possible.
Reading comprehension exercises
Choose the correct option:
1. Who was Herman Ebbinghaus and what was he primarily interested in?
a) A psychologist interested in emotions.
b) A German scientist who studied memory and forgetting.
c) A researcher who worked with multiple participants.
d) A mathematician who studied learning algorithms.
2. What type of words did Ebbinghaus use in his experiments?
a) Complex, multi-syllable words.
b) Randomly selected German sentences.
c) Nonsense, one-syllable words with no meaning.
d) Commonly used German vocabulary.
3. What did Ebbinghaus discover about memory retention over time?
a) Information retention improves after two days.
b) People remember 90% of the information after seven days.
c) Up to 80% of information is forgotten after one week.
d) People forget everything within 24 hours.
4. What effect did repeated reviews have on Ebbinghaus' Forgetting Curve?
a) It remained unchanged no matter how often the material was reviewed.
b) It got steeper, indicating more forgetting.
c) It became flatter, meaning less information was forgotten.
d) It became unpredictable with each review.
5. Which of the following is NOT a recommended review method from the text?
a) Taking photos of notes to review later.
b) Recording voice messages of key information.
c) Making new vocabulary lists without reviewing old ones
d) Using AI tools to generate personalized tests.
Answers:
1. b) A German scientist who studied memory and forgetting.
2. c) Nonsense, one-syllable words with no meaning.
3. c) Up to 80% of information is forgotten after one week
4. c) It became flatter, meaning less information was forgotten
5. c) Making new vocabulary lists without reviewing old ones