Ebbinghaus forgot materials very rapidly, but most college students forget the same materials much more slowly. Why?

A) College students are, on the average, more intelligent.
B) College students have had more practice at memorizing useless information.
C) Ebbinghaus was suffering from greater proactive interference.
D) Ebbinghaus was beginning to develop Alzheimer's disease.

Proactive interference occurs when previously learned information interferes with the ability to learn new information. Ebbinghaus was using nonsense syllables, which by definition do not have any meaningful connections to existing knowledge, so he was more susceptible to proactive interference. College students, on the other hand, have more prior knowledge and experience with the types of information they are learning, which helps them better assimilate new information and reduces the impact of proactive interference. The other answer choices are not supported by the information in the question.