Forgetting curve

A typical graph of the forgetting curve purports to show that humans tend to halve their memory of newly learned knowledge in a matter of days or weeks unless they consciously review the learned material.

[2] From 1880 to 1885, Hermann Ebbinghaus ran a limited, incomplete study on himself and published his hypothesis in 1885 as Über das Gedächtnis (later translated into English as Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology).

[3] Ebbinghaus studied the memorisation of nonsense syllables, such as "WID" and "ZOF" (CVCs or Consonant–Vowel–Consonant) by repeatedly testing himself after various time periods and recording the results.

[3] Ebbinghaus investigated the rate of forgetting, but not the effect of spaced repetition on the increase in retrievability of memories.

In 2015, an attempt to replicate the forgetting curve with one study subject has shown the experimental results similar to Ebbinghaus' original data.

He was the first to carry out a series of well-designed experiments on the subject of forgetting, and he was one of the first to choose artificial stimuli in the research of experimental psychology.

Since his introduction of nonsense syllables, a large number of experiments in experimental psychology has been based on highly controlled artificial stimuli.

He went on to hypothesize that basic training in mnemonic techniques can help overcome those differences in part.

He discovered that information is easier to recall when it's built upon things you already know, and the forgetting curve was flattened by every repetition.

It appeared that by applying frequent training in learning, the information was solidified by repeated recalling.

Later research also suggested that, other than the two factors Ebbinghaus proposed, higher original learning would also produce slower forgetting.

[7] Spending time each day to remember information will greatly decrease the effects of the forgetting curve.

[9] Some memories remain free from the detrimental effects of interference and do not necessarily follow the typical forgetting curve as various noise and outside factors influence what information would be remembered.

[10] There is debate among supporters of the hypothesis about the shape of the curve for events and facts that are more significant to the subject.