Page "Hermann Ebbinghaus" Paragraph 5
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Ebbinghaus was determined to show that higher mental processes could actually be studied using experimentation, which was in opposition in the popular held thought of the time.
To control for most potentially confounding variables, Ebbinghaus wanted to use simple acoustic encoding and maintenance rehearsal for which a list of words could have been used.
As learning would be affected by prior knowledge and understanding, he needed something that could be easily memorized but which had no prior cognitive associations.
Easily formable associations with regular words would interfere with his results, so he used items that would later be called “ nonsense syllables ” ( also known as the CVC trigram ).
A nonsense syllable is a consonant-vowel-consonant combination, where the consonant does not repeat and the syllable does not have prior meaning.
However, syllables such as DAX, BOK, and YAT would all be acceptable ( though Ebbinghaus left no examples ).
Once he had created his collection of syllables, he would pull out a number of random syllables from a box and then write them down in a notebook.
Then, to the regular sound of a metronome, and with the same voice inflection, he would read out the syllables, and attempt to recall them at the end of the procedure.
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