Ebbinghaus, << EHB ihng hows, >> Hermann (1850-1909), was a German experimental psychologist who performed highly original work in the study of memory and association. He invented the nonsense syllable, a short word of little or no meaning, and memorized many lists of them to develop a set of principles to describe the way people learn. Ebbinghaus also discovered the forgetting curve, which describes the decline in the brain’s ability to remember things over time. In 1897, he wrote Grundzuge der Psychologie (Characteristics of Psychology). Ebbinghaus was born in Barmen (now part of Wuppertal), Germany, on Jan. 24, 1850. He died on Feb. 26, 1909.
