Ebbinghaus's _____ shows that forgetting happens quickly, within the first hour, and then tapers off gradually.

• A. curve of forgetting
• B. distributed practice theory
• C. encoding failure theory
• D. interference theory

Answer: (A)

Verified step by step guidance

1. Identify the key concept being asked about in the problem, which is related to Ebbinghaus's research on memory and forgetting.
2. Recall that Hermann Ebbinghaus was a pioneering researcher in the field of memory, known for his experiments on the forgetting process.
3. Understand that Ebbinghaus's research led to the development of a specific concept that describes how information is lost over time if there is no attempt to retain it.
4. Recognize that this concept is often visualized as a graph or curve, illustrating the rapid decline of memory retention shortly after learning, followed by a slower rate of forgetting.
5. Conclude that the term describing this phenomenon is the 'curve of forgetting,' which shows the pattern of forgetting over time as discovered by Ebbinghaus.