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Home→The Westburn Dictionary of Marketing→E→Ebbinghaus, Hermann

Ebbinghaus, Hermann

Definition:
German psychologist, author of Grundzuge der Psychologie (Leipzig, 1902) in which he reported one of the first empirical investigations of the relationship between retention, repetition and the elapsed time since exposure/learning. His main findings, which have been confirmed by subsequent and more rigorous research were that: (a) repetition is subject to diminishing returns; (b) spaced exposure is more effective in achieving retention than massing the same number of experiences into a concentrated time period; (c) forgetting is an exponential function; (d) the more complex/extensive the information to be communicated the greater the number of repetitions necessary to achieve a given level of learning/recall.

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© Westburn Publishers Ltd 2002, The Westburn Dictionary of Marketing edited by Michael J Baker, ISBN 978-0-946433-01-8. www.themarketingdictionary.com. Entry: [Michael J. Baker], [1998].