Donald Olding Hebb is a Canadian physiologist and neuropsychologist. Known for work that led to the understanding of the value of neurons for the learning process. He is also called one of the creators of the theory of artificial neural networks , since he proposed the first working algorithm for learning artificial neural networks.
| Donald Alding Hebb | |
|---|---|
| Donald olding hebb | |
| Birth name | |
| Date of Birth | |
| Place of Birth | Chester , Nova Scotia , Canada |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | Nova Scotia , Canada |
| A country | |
| Scientific field | physiology , psychology |
| Place of work | McGill University ; Queen’s University ; York National Primate Research Center |
| Alma mater | Dalhousy University ; McGill University |
| Known as | Hebb's synapse , Hebb 's training |
| Awards and prizes | (1966) Introduced into the (2003) [2] |
Content
Biography
Donald Hebb was born in the town of Chester in Nova Scotia and was the eldest of four children of Arthur and Clara (Alding) Hebb. When Donald turned 16, the family moved to the city of Dartmouth in Nova Scotia.
Both Donald's parents were doctors. Donald's mother was strongly influenced by the ideas of Maria Montessori and engaged in his training at home up to 8 years. Upon entering the school, Donald entered the class three years older than his age.
In his youth, Donald did not have a penchant for medicine and psychology and wanted to become a writer. He entered Dalhousy University to prepare for a writing career. He was not a diligent student, and had the best marks in mathematics and science. In 1925, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree. After that, Donald becomes a teacher and teaches at his old school in Chester. He later worked as a farmer in Alberta , then wandered and was a worker in Quebec . During his travels, he read the work of Sigmund Freud (which he called “not too strict”), William James and John Watson , which led him to the idea of doing psychology.
At the age of 23, he decides to do psychology professionally and asks William Dunlop Tait , head of the psychology department at McGill University (later Hebb takes the position) to advise him on what to do and gets a list of books to read. During this year, he again earns teaching.
President of the American Psychological Association in 1960 .
In honor of Donald Hebb, the Canadian Psychological Association Prize is awarded annually for significant contributions to psychology [3] .
Work
Organization Behavior: Neuropsychological Theory ( 1949 )
The book "Organization of behavior: neuropsychological theory" is considered the most important in the work of Donald Hebb.
Hebb was one of the first to start developing a theory of the relationship between the brain and thought processes . The scientist investigated the relationship of learning processes with the processes occurring in the structure of the neural connections of the brain. According to Hebb, as a result of frequent stimulation of the nervous system, coordinated neural structures, cell assemblies, are formed. Cell ensembles develop as a result of stimulation of neuron connections with each other. These processes occurring in the brain are the biological basis of the learning process. The mental representation of external events is reflected in the hierarchical structure of various neural ensembles.
Hebb as a teacher
Hebb spent most of his life teaching, first as a school teacher and principal in Montreal, and later at McGill University. He was a successful lecturer and teacher and had a huge impact on the minds of his students and students. During the time of the professorship at McGill, he believed that it was impossible to teach motivation, but it was necessary to create the appropriate conditions necessary for the students in which they would study and engage in research. Students can be taught to write, to help choose a good scientific problem, and even help not to be distracted from the problem, but the motivation and desire to do research and solve the problem must come from the person himself. Hebb believed that students should be judged by their ability to think and create something new than by their ability to memorize and reproduce old ideas.
Hebb believed in the possibility of an objective study of the mind, in the sense of biological research. Such an attitude towards psychology and the success of Hebb as a teacher made McGill University one of the recognized centers of psychological research.
Sensory deprivation, military research, torture
Hebb's name often comes up in discussions about the participation of research psychologists in interrogations using sensory deprivation techniques because of his research in this area. In a report at a symposium on sensory deprivation in June 1958 at Harvard, Hebb noted:
The work we did at McGill University actually began with the problem of brainwashing. We were not allowed to say this in the first publication ... The main impulse, of course, was the concern about “confessions” in Russian communist processes. The term “brainwashing” appeared a little later, as applied to Chinese technology. We did not know what Russian technologies were, but it seems that they led to some specific changes in attitude. How? One of the possible factors was sensory deprivation, and we concentrated on this issue. [four]
Original Text (Eng.)McGill University didn’t really have to do that. We are not allowed to go to the public publishing site .... “Brainwashing” was applied to Chinese procedures. We didn’t know what the Russian procedures were. How? One possible factor was concentrated on that.
Recent historical studies have shown that Hebb's work on sensory deprivation was funded by the CIA (McCoy, 2007), partly classified and initially used only by US state agencies. In some of his studies, people were subjected to hours of sensory deprivation, which by today's standards could be considered as torture if the experiments were not conducted with volunteers.
Bibliography
- The Organization of Behavior . 1949. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-36727-7
- Essays on Mind . 1980. Lawrence Erlbaum. ISBN 978-0-89859-017-3 .
- Textbook of Psychology, Textbook of Psychology Students' Handbook (with Don C. Donderi). 1995. Kendall Hunt Pub Co. ISBN 978-0-7872-1103-5 .
Notes
- ↑ SNAC - 2010.
- ↑ Dr. Donald O. Hebb | Canadian Medical Hall of Fame
- ↑ CPA Awards (Eng.) . The appeal date is September 7, 2014.
- ↑ Solomon, P., Kubzansky, Philip E., Leiderman, P. Herbert, Mendelson, Jack H., Trumbull, Richard, & Wexler, Donald, Eds. (1961). Sensory Deprivation: A Symposium Held at Harvard Medical School. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
Links
- Hebb, Donald O. (1904-1985) // Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology. - 2001.
- Donald Hebb Biography . Great Canadian Psychology Website . The appeal date is March 9, 2006. Archived on March 27, 2012.
- Richard E. Brown & Peter M. Milner. The Legacy Of Donald O. Hebb: More Than The Hebb Synapse (Eng.) // Nature: journal. - 2003. - December ( vol. 4 ). - P. 1013-1019 .
- Donald Hebb (1904 - 1985) . Harnad E-Print Archive and Psycoloquy and BBS Journal Archives . The appeal date is March 18, 2006. Archived March 27, 2012.
- Alfred W. McCoy. Psychological Torture and Modern Medical Ethics (in English) // Journal of History of the Behcher's Psychological Torture and the Development of CIA : journal. - Wiley Interscience, 2007. - Vol. 43 , no. 4 P. 401-417 .