ABSTRACT
A rather substantial portion of contemporary cognitive psychology can trace its evolution back to the then-exciting breakthrough into the higher mental processes provided by Ebbinghaus in the late 1800s (Ebbinghaus, 1885). While the decades that have intervened have frequently been dominated by noncognitive and mechanistic constructions of the issues (Hull, 1952; Thorndike, 1932; Watson, 1919), and on occasion there have been digressions into peripheral concerns (Maier & Seligman, 1976), there has been a generally steadfast commitment to Ebbinghaus's original definition of the direction psychology should take in answering these questions (Kausler, 1974). Although this direction was determined to a large extent by the influence of the British Associationists, and the type of naive associationism that eventually evolved was primarily the product of later generations, it was Ebbinghaus who set the original course.
