Angell, J. R. (1900). Review of Experimentelle Beitrage zur Lehre vom ökonomischen Lernen. [Review of the book Experimentelle Beitrage zur Lehre vom ökonomischen Lernen. L. Steffens]. Psychological Review, 7(5), 522-524.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0068389
Reviews the book, Experimentelle Beitrage zur Lehre vom ökonomischen Lernen by Lottie Steffens. This paper is chiefly devoted to a report of a series of experiments dealing with the methods by which various persons memorize verse. Having discovered a number of such methods, the author undertakes to determine which form of procedure requires the least expenditure of time in order to learn by heart any given selection of poetry. Throughout the article the term economy applies to the amount of time, and not to the amount of effort, involved in any of the various undertakings. The larger part of the experiments were made upon seven subjects. This is relatively a small number, but the results are sufficiently uniform to warrant considerable confidence that they represent typical tendencies at least. At a number of points the evidence was supplemented and confirmed by experiments with nonsense syllables. Apparently the natural disposition of most persons, when attempting to memorize verse, is to split the selection up into a number of sections, which are learned more or less independently, and then put together. This general method shows many individual modifications, both as regards the length of such sections, and as regards the relative number of repetitions accorded the several parts after they have been once learned. The author advances a number of plausible explanations for the common prejudices in favor of the piecemeal mode of memorizing and then attempts to prove in what particulars the other method is superior, calling to her assistance for this purpose nonsense syllables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)