676 PSYCHOLOGY. 



the quality of mjsterj- seeius to me a little strained. 1 liave 

 over ami over again in my own case succeeded in resolving 

 the phenomenon into a case of memory, so indistinct that 

 ■whilst some past circumstances are presented again, 

 the others are not. The dissimilar portions of the past do 

 not arise completely enough at first for the date to be iden- 

 tified All we get is the present scene with a general sug- 

 gesti^^n of pastness about it. That faithful observer. Prof. 

 Lazarus, interprets the phenomenon in the same way ;* and 

 it is noteworth}' that just as soon as the jjast context grows 

 complete and distinct the emotion of weirdness fades from 

 the experience. 



EXACT MEASUREMENTS OF MEMORY 



have recently been made in Germany. Professor Eb- 

 binghaus, in a really heroic series of daily observations 

 of more than two years' duration, examined the powers of 

 retention and reproduction. He learned lists of meaning- 

 less syllables by heart, and tested his recollection of them 

 from day to day. He could not remember more than 7 

 after a single reading. It took, however, 16 readings to re- 

 member 12, 44 readings to remember 24, and 55 readings 

 to remember 26 syllables, the moment of ' remembering ' 

 being here reckoned as the first moment when the list could 

 be recited without a fault, t When a 16-sy liable list was 

 read over a certain number of times on one day, and then 

 studied on the day following until remembered, it was 

 found that the number of seconds saved in the study on 

 the second day was proportional to the number of read- 

 ings on the first — proportional, that is, within certain rather 

 narrow limits, for which see the text.| No amount of repe- 

 tition spent on nonsense-verses over a certain length en- 

 abled Dr. Ebbinghaus to retain them wdthout error for 24 

 hours. In forgetting such things as these lists of syllables, 

 the loss gcGS on very much more rapidly at first than later 

 on. He measured the loss by the number of seconds re- 



* Zeitschr. f. Volkerpsychologie n. s. w., Bd v. p. 146. 



f Ueber das Gedachtniss, experimentelle Untersuchungen (1885); p. 64 



X Ibid. § 23. 



