Life Dates
July 1904–August 1985
Introduction
Hebb is an internationally renowned neurophysiologist most who developed the concept of the Hebbian synapse and the Hebbian learning rule [1]. His contributions to the understanding of human learning and memory continue to have an impact on most areas of psychological thought and practice.
Educational Information
The eldest son of four children Donald Olding Hebb was a born in Chester, Nova Scotia in Canada [1]. Hebb initially pursued a career as a novelist and studied in the Faculty of Arts at Dalhousie University in Halifax where he majored in English. However, this ambition did not meet with success [1].
Hebb then motivated by the works of Sigmund Freud and went on to study as a graduate student in psychology at McGill University. In 1931 he wrote his M.A. thesis entitled Conditioned and Unconditioned Reflexes and Inhibitionwhich argued that skeletal reflexes were due to cellular learning. This thesis later formed the basis for his...
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Brown, R. E., & Milner, P. M. (2003). The legacy of Donald O Hebb: mare than the Hebb synapse. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 4, 1013–1019.
Cooper, S. J. (2004). Donald O Hebb’s synapse and learning rule: a history and commentary. Neuroscience and Biobehavioural Reviews, 28, 851–874.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this entry
Cite this entry
McKinlay, A. (2011). Hebb, Donald O.. In: Goldstein, S., Naglieri, J.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Child Behavior and Development. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79061-9_1338
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79061-9_1338
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-77579-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-79061-9
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science