Richard Semon

Richard Semon was a German biologist and experimental psychologist best known for his work on memory and inheritance. He proposed that organisms record their experiences through changes at the cellular level, which can be stored and potentially passed down to future generations—a concept related to heredity. Semon introduced the idea of "mnemonics" (memory traces) and believed that experiences leave physical marks in the body, influencing future responses. His ideas influenced later theories in biology, psychology, and the study of inherited traits, bridging the understanding of how experiences might be biologically encoded and transmitted across generations.