ABSTRACT
In the beginning, there was Ueber das Gedaechtnis [On Memory] by Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909). It reflected his decade-long intense personal devotion to create a series of highly original experiments that set enduring precedents for the future scientific study of human learning and memory. It was the first such publication in the history of scientific psychology. The volume was the sweet fruit of highly disciplined hard labor, because after all, Experimenter and Subject were one. This original and masterful oeuvre had a commanding effect on the advancement of psychological science, in part because Wilhem Wundt (1832-1920), the founder of modem experimental psychology (first formal laboratory, Leipzig, 1879), asserted that higher mental processes, such as human memory, were beyond the scope of experimental investigation, and could only be explored through Voelkerpsychologie [folk psychology], which relied primarily on people’s casual recollections and traditions, rather than empirical science.
