1.

Background

Donald Olding Hebb was born on July 22, 1904 in Chester, Nova Scotia. He was a
Canadian psychologist who was influential in the area of neuropsychology. His parents
were both medical doctors. His mother was heavily influenced by ideas of Maria
Montessori, an Italian physician who believed in "education of the senses before
development of the intellect". Because of this, Donald's mother home schooled him until
the age of 8.
in 1925 Hebb received his B.A. from Dalhouise University with the lowest course
average a person could have without actually falling. Since hebb is one of psychology’s
most creative researchers and theorists, undergraduate grade point average, in his case,
had no predictive value. After graduation, Hebb taught school in the village where he
grew up. At the age of 23 he read Freud and decided psychology department at McGill
University in Montreal was a friend of his mother’s, he was admitted as a part time
graduate psychology student in spit of hiss poor undergraduate psychology student in
spite of his poor undergraduate record.
Hebb continued to teach elementary school while he was graduate student, however,
and had a compulsion to reform educational practices. He tried several experiments with
various degrees of success. In one experiment he decided that extra school work should
not be used as a punishment because doing so would create a negative attitude toward
schoolwork. Since he felt some form a punishment was necessary to maintain order, he
reverted to mildly slapping the student’s hand with a strap for a wrong doing. Hebb
(1980) describes on occasion when this disciplinary technique backfired:
One day I set out to strap a boy who flinched so that the end of the strap went by his
hand and hit my trousers at the level of the glans penis. It hurts like the devil. And I said
to the boy, “This hurts me more than it does you.
In addition to wanting to become an educational reformer, another of Hebb’s early
passions was to write novels for a living, but, like for skinner, his effort failed.
During his years at McGill, Hebb was trained in the Pavlovian tradition and after writing
a writing thesis compatible with this tradition, he obtained his M.A. in 1932. In spite of
his training Hebb saw restrictions in Pavlovian theory and doubted its importance. While
at McGill, Hebb read Kohler’s Gestalt Psychology and Lashley’s work on brain
psychology (which we will consider briefly below), and found them both to this liking. In
1934, Hebb decided to continue his education at the University of Chicago where we
worked with Lashley and took a seminar from Kohler. Lashley’s work on cast doubt on
the prevailing belief that the brain was a complex switchboard. This switchboard (or relay
station) concept of the brain was held mainly by the behaviorists, e.g., Thorndike, Hull,
and Waston and by the associations, e.g., Pavlon and Guthirie. It was assumed by those
holding this view that certain sensory events stimulate certain areas of the brain, causing
specific reactions. Learning, according to this point of view, causes a change in neural
circuitry so that sensory events come to simulate response other than those they originally
stimulated.
This consistent finding became Lashley’s principle of mass action, which stated that
the disruption of learning and retention goes up as the amount of cortical destruction goes
up, regardless of the location of the destruction. Lashley concluded that the cortex
functioned as a whole during learning, and if one part of the cortex was destroyed, other
parts of the cortex could take over the destroyed portion’s function. This ability of one
portion of the cortex to take over the function of another was referred to by Lahley as
equipotentiality. Thus, mass action indicated that the amount of learning and memory
disruption is a function of the amount of the cortical area destroyed, and equipotentiality
indicated that the location of the cortical ablation was unimportant.
Clearly, these findings were not in accordance with Hebb’s early training at McGill
University and his opposition to Pavlov, which was at first tenuous, now became outright
disagreement. “I had all the fervor of the reformed drunk at a temperance meeting;
having been a fully convinced Pavlovian, I was now a fully convinced Gestalter-cum-
Lashleyan” (Hebb, 1995, p. 625). Once again, we are reminded of an important
characteristic of good scientists; they are willing to change their minds.
In 1935, Lashley accepted a professorship at Harvard and he invited Hebb to go with
him. In 1936, Hebb obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard and remained there an additional
year as a teaching and research assistant.
 In 1937, Hebb went to the Montreal Neurological Institute to work with the famous
brand surgeon Wilder Penfield. Hebb’s job was to study the psychological status of
Penfield patients after brain surgery.
In 1942, Lashley accepted an appointment as Director of the Yerkes Laboratories of
Primate Biology in Orange Park, Florida, and again, asked Hebb to join him. While at the
Yerkes Laboratories (1942-1947), Hebb studied the emotions and personalities of
chimpanzees. Hebb made several observations that further stimulated his own
neurophysiological theory of leaning and perception.
In 1948, after five years at the Yerkes Laboratories, Hebb accepted an appointment as
professor of psychological at McGill University where he has remained ever since. At the
time of this appointment, psychological psychology was not very popular and Hebb felt
very fortunate to get the job. Hebb believed that there were two major reasons why
neurophysiological explanation of learning were avoided at this time. First, as the
philosophy of science developed and as more was learned about the logic of science,
many researchers felt that explaining observable behavior in terms of physiological
events was like mixing apples and oranges. In other words, it was believed that
physiological event, like overt behavior, constitute a self-contained system, and the
relationship between the two systems remained indeterminate. Second reason that
physiological explanations were not very popular involved the very nature of the
behavioristic movement, which was mainly a reaction against introspection. To the
behaviorist, the only legitimate subject matter for psychology was something tangible
that everyone could see and investigate.
To a large extent it was Hebb that made neurophysiological explanation s of learning
respectable. Hebb (1960) suggest that the behavioristics movement was only the first
stage of a revolution within psychology, a revolution against the older subjective,
philosophic schools of psychology.
2. Heeb’s basic theoretical nation

The theory Dr. Hebb put forward in The Organization of Behavior was one of neural
networking. He suggested that two neurons firing together will strengthen the connection and
make it easier for the two neurons to illicit a response from the third. In short, "The neurons
that fire together, wire together". This had incredible implications for physiology and
psychology both, and has recently been used in applications as far-removed from psychology
as engineering and computer science. While Dr. Hebb was an aggressive scientist, he was a
gentle father to his two daughters, Mary Ellen, and Jane Paul. He enjoyed reciting poetry and
often sang his children to sleep. At the time of his death, Dr. Hebb had been widowed for two
years.

Dr. Hebb's contribution to psychology can hardly be overstated. His teachings and ideas
started what would become the entire branch of psychology known as neuropsychology. The
Organization of Behavior is a must-have in the psychological community, referred to often.
Dr. Hebb's idea that behavior can be understood in terms of the neurons which propagate it,
and that thinking affects the development of the brain, are concepts actively examined to this
day by many, including Great Canadian Psychologists Brenda Milner and Ronald Melzack.

CELL ASSEMBLIES AND PHASE SEQUENCE

a. Cell Assemblies
According to Hebb, each environmental object we experience fires a complex
package of neurons called a cell assembly. For example, as we look at a pencil, we
will shift our attention from the point to the eraser, to the wooden shaft. Of our
attention shifts, different neurons are stimulated. However, the entire package of
 neurons stimulated at the time corresponds to one environmental object a pencil. All
aspects of this complex neural package will, at first, be independent.
A cell assembly can be large or small, depending upon the environmental object or
event it represents. For example, the cell assemblies associated with door knob would
consist of a relatively small number of neurons, but the cell assembly for house would
consist of a relatively large number of neurons. The entire cell assembly is an
interrelated neurological package that can be fired by either external stimulation,
internal stimulation, or by a combination of the two. When a cell assembly fires, we
experience that thought of the even the assembly represent. To Hebb, the cell
assembly is the neurological basis of an idea or thought. In this way, Hebb explain
why a house, or a cow, or a loved one need not be present for us to think of them.

b. Phase Sequence
Just as different aspects of the same object become neurologically interrelated to
form cell assemblies, so do cell assemblies become neurologically interrelated to
form phase sequence. A phase sequence is a temporarily integrated series of assembly
activities; it amounts to one current in the stream of thought, that is a series of ideas
arranged in some logical order. This explains how a whiff of perfume, or few strains
from a favorite song may trigger memories of a loved one.
For Hebb, there are two kinds of learning. One involves the slow build up of cell
assemblies early in life. The build up of cell assemblies can probably be explained by
one of he S-R theories of learning, such as Gutherie’s. This is, object and events that
are related in the environment come to be related on the neurological level. After cell
assemblies and phase sequence are developed, however, subsequent learning is more
cognitive. Adult learning, for example, often characteristics by insight and creativity,
probably involves the rearrangement of phase sequence. Thus, Hebb maintain that the
variables influencing childhood learning and those influencing adult learning are not
the same. Childhood learning provides the framework for later meaning. For example,
learning language is a slow, cumbersome process which probably involves the
building up of millions of cell assemblies and phase sequences. However, once a
language has been learned, an individual can rearrange it in any number of creative
ways, perhaps in the form of poetry or a novel. But, says Hebb, first come the
building blocks sand then comes the insight and creativity which characterize adult
learning.

SENSORY DEPRIVATON
We have already seen that restricting the early sensory experience of a organism
severely retards its perceptual, intellectual, and emotional development. Hebb’s
explanations for this is that curtailed sensory experience limits the organism’s
capacity to develop cell assemblies and phase sequence which are the building blocks
of all cognitive activity.
Most subject could stand the conditions for only two or three days (the longest was
six). The subject typically became irritable and almost childlike in their limited
interactions with the experimenter. Much to the surprise of Hebb and his co-workers,
sensory deprivation produced an effect far beyond simple boredom.
Later studies have shown that when the condition of sensory deprivation are made
even more severe, subject can stand them for only a very short period of time. For
example, when subject is immersed in water (breathing through a snorkel-tube) in
complete darkness, they typically can last no more than a few hours before
terminating their involvement in the experience (see Zubek, 1969).
Hebb concludes from this research that not only is sensory experience necessary
for proper neurophysiological development, but it is also necessary for the
maintenance of formal functioning. In others words, once the consistent evens in
one’s life are represented neurophysiological in the form of cell assemblies and phase
sequence, they must go on being coordinated with environmental events. If the
sensory events that ordinarily occur in one’s life do not occur, one experiences stress,
fear, or disorientation. So, not only do consistent environmental events give to rise
certain neurological circuits, but those sane events must go on supporting those
circuits. Thus, to the various needs that organisms have, such as the need for food,
water, sex, and oxygen, Hebb adds the need for simulation. As this section indicates,
even if all of one’s other needs are satisfied, if one does not experience normal
stimulation, severe cognitive disorientation results.

ENRICHED ENVIRONTMENT
Hebb (1949, pp. 298-99) ran what was probably the first experiment designed to
investigate the effects of different kinds of rearing conditions on intellectual
development. Two groups of rats were involved, one was reared in cages in Hebb’s
laboratory, the other was reared in Hebb’s home by his daughter. Rats in the latter
group spent considerable time roaming around the house, presumably playing with
Hebb’s children. After several weeks, the “pet” rats were returned to the laboratory
and compared to the cage reared rats.
Numerous studies have supported Hebb’s early research. For example, a series of
experiment run at the University of California by Rosenzweig, Krech, Bennet and
their colleagues have confirmed the fact that rats reared in an enriched environment
are faster learners than their littermates raised in relative isolation. In this research
enrich environment consisted of a large cage containing other rats and numerous toy-
like objects. Control animals were reared alone in cages which contained no objects.
Hebb’s explanation of these findings is straight forward. The greater sensory diversity
provided by the enriched environment allowed the animal to build up a large number
of cell assemblies and more complex phase sequence. Thus, the damage done by a
restricted early environment can be undone if condition change for the better. In other
words, there does not appear to be a critical developmental stage beyond which the
damage caused by a stricted sensory environment early in life cannot be remedied.

THE NATURE OF FEAR

Hebb observed that chimpanzees showed no sign of fear until they were about four
months old. After that age, his subject showed no fear of objects that were completely
familiar or completely unfamiliar to them. It was only when familiar objects were
show in familiar ways that fear was expressed. For example, whole chimpanzee or
human bodies elicited no fear, whereas models of parts of chimpanzee human or
human bodies did so.
Hebb felt the spontaneity of the fear he observed ruled out an example an explanation
in terms of conditioned responses. Hebb explanation was in terms of cell assemblies
and phase sequence. If a completely unfamiliar object is shown to an organism, no
cell assembly would have been developed corresponding to that object. Likewise, if a
familiar object is shown to an organism the neural circuits that developed from prior
experience with that object would be activated and there would be no disruption in
behavior. It is only when an object triggers an existing cell assembly or phase
sequence and is subsequently not followed by the event that normally accompany the
object that fear is elicited.