唐纳德·赫布1904—1985

生平

赫布出生于加拿大新斯科舍省切斯特。曾就读于戴尔豪斯大学并于1925年获文学士学位。毕业后回家乡中学教书。后来他对西格蒙德·弗洛伊德、威廉·詹姆斯、约翰·华生等人的著作产生兴趣，并于1928年进入麦吉尔大学心理学系，成为一名在职研究生。在这里他阅读了查尔斯·谢灵顿、伊万·巴甫洛夫等人的作品，并以优等成绩毕业。1934年进入芝加哥大学学习，师从行为主义心理学家卡尔·拉什利（Karl Lashley）。后跟随拉什利前往哈佛大学，并于1936年获博士学位。

1937年他返回加拿大，在蒙特利尔神经科学研究所（Montreal Neurological Institute）与神经科学家怀尔德·彭菲尔德（Wilder Penfield）一同从事研究。1939年赴女王大学任教。在这里他与肯内特·威廉斯（Kenneth Williams）一同发明了用来测试老鼠智力的赫布－威廉斯迷宫（Hebb-Williams maze），并证明了“老鼠幼年时期的经历对其成年后解决问题的能力有持久性的影响”，这一结论成为了发展心理学中的重要原理。1942年起他前往耶基斯国家灵长类研究中心工作，并再次与拉什利合作，从事黑猩猩的情绪研究。1947年回到麦吉尔大学任心理学教授，并于次年出任系主任。1949年他出版《行为的组织》（The Organization of Behavior）一书，提出了知名的赫布理论。1970年担任麦吉尔大学校长。1972年退休，并继续担任荣休教授。1980年又回到戴尔豪斯大学任心理学荣休教授。1985年逝世。

Donald Olding Hebb (July 22, 1904 – August 20, 1985) was a Canadian psychologist who was influential in the area of neuropsychology, where he sought to understand how the function of neurons contributed to psychological processes such as learning. He is best known for his theory of Hebbian learning, which he introduced in his classic 1949 work The Organization of Behavior. He has been described as the father of neuropsychology and neural networks. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Hebb as the 19th most cited psychologist of the 20th century. His views on learning described behavior and thought in terms of brain function, explaining cognitive processes in terms of connections between neuron assemblies.

Early life

Donald Hebb was born in Chester, Nova Scotia, the oldest of four children of Arthur M. and M. Clara (Olding) Hebb, and lived there until the age of 16, when his parents moved to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

Hebb's parents were both medical doctors. Donald's mother was heavily influenced by the ideas of Maria Montessori, and she home-schooled him until the age of 8. He performed so well in elementary school that he was promoted to the 7th grade at 10 years of age but, as a result of failing and then repeating the 11th grade in Chester, he graduated from the 12th grade at 16 years of age from Halifax County Academy. (Many or most of the single class of grade 9, 10 and 11 students at the Chester school failed the provincial examinations.

Career

In 1928, he became a graduate student at McGill University. But, at the same time, he was appointed headmaster of Verdun High School in the suburbs of Montreal. He worked with two colleagues from the university, Kellogg and Clarke, to improve the situation. He took a more innovative approach to education—for example, assigning more interesting schoolwork and sending anyone misbehaving outside (making schoolwork a privilege). He completed his master's degree in psychology at McGill in 1932 under the direction of the eminent psychologist Boris Babkin. Hebb's master's thesis, entitled Conditioned and Unconditioned Reflexes and Inhibition, tried to show that skeletal reflexes were due to cellular learning.

Honors and awards

Hebb was a member of both the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) and the American Psychological Association (APA). He was elected President of the CPA in 1953 and of the APA in 1960. He won the APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in 1961.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in March 1966.

He received an honorary doctorate from 15 universities, including in 1961 from University of Chicago, in 1965 from Dalhousie University and in 1975 from Concordia University.

The Donald O. Hebb Award, named in his honor, is awarded by the Canadian Psychological Association to distinguished Canadian psychologists.

The Organization of Behavior (1949)

The Organization of Behavior is considered Hebb's most significant contribution to the field of neuroscience. A combination of his years of work in brain surgery mixed with his study of human behavior, it finally brought together the two realms of human perception that for a long time could not be connected properly, that is, it connected the biological function of the brain as an organ together with the higher function of the mind.

In 1929, Hans Berger discovered that the brain exhibits continuous electrical activity and cast doubt on the Pavlovian model of perception and response because, now, there appeared to be something going on in the brain even without much stimulus.

Theories of education

Hebb was instrumental in defining psychology as a biological science by identifying thought as the integrated activity of the brain. His views on learning described behavior and thought in terms of brain function, explaining cognitive processes in terms of connections between neuron assemblies. These ideas played a large part in his views on education and learning.

Hebb viewed motivation and learning as related properties. He believed that everything in the brain was interrelated and worked together. His theory was that everything we experience in our environment fires a set of neurons called a cell assembly. This cell assembly is the brain's thoughts or ideas.