Review of The organization of behavior: A neuropsychological theory.

Abstract

DONALD 0. HEBB The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002, 335 pages (ISBN 0-8058-4300-0, us$39.95, Hardcover) Reviewed by RICHARD C. TEES It must be very unusual to review a book in 2002 that was published more than 50 years ago. Although The Organization of Behavior has remained one of the most influential books in fields of Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Neuroscience since its 1949 publication, it has been out of print since 1966. However, it continues to be highly cited in contemporary research publications (with more than 5,000 SCI citations since 1990) and be on the current reading lists of an extraordinary number of undergraduate and graduate courses in a wide variety of disciplines. It is hard to imagine that such an influential book would not be available for purchase on-line or in any university bookstore. Fortunately, two of our colleagues have come to the rescue. Richard Brown (Dalhousie University) and Peter Milner (McGill University) have organized a reprinting of The Organization of Behavior and the appearance of this new edition (2002) has solved this embarrassing problem of being unable to obtain a copy of one of the most highly regarded publications in science. Although scientists and philosophers had long speculated about the involvement of biological factors in psychological phenomena, it was not until the 20th century and the publication of The Organization of Behavior in 1949 that Physiological Psychology emerged as an active field of scientific research. The book also served as a launching pad for revolutionary developments in a wide range of other fields. It is on numerous milestone lists of revolutionary/ high-impact publications in the history of Biology, Neuroscience, Cognitive Science as well as Psychology. For example, the book is listed as the fourth (of 100) most influential publications in Cognitive Science behind those of Chomsky, Marr, and Turing. It is also high on lists of influential papers in Psychology, Biology, Philosophy, and Neuroscience. It has been translated into 11 languages and current courses throughout the world in Anatomy, Philosophy, Physiology, (Cognitive and Biological) Psychology, Neuroscience, Ophthalmology, Early Childhood Education, Computer Science (e.g., on Robotics), and interdisciplinary courses on Creativity, Language Acquisition, and Consciousness all reference The Organization of Behavior, both citing the book and its ideas, as well as requiring its reading. This new publication contains some interesting additional features appearing in the Foreword written by Brown and Milner. Their narrative was, in part, based on material from the McGill University archives and it provides a shortened biography of Don and a narrative on the origin of some of the ideas that appeared in The Organization of Behavior as well as their current status and relevance. For example, as the authors point out, the idea for the Hebb synapse first appeared in 1932 in his McGill MA thesis. Hebb's ideas for the book were initially outlined in five pages of notes written in June 1944, and the first complete draft of the book was finished in 1946. In the course of their 13-page narrative, Brown and Milner are also able to illustrate aspects of Hebb's character, his insightful eclecticism, and modesty. Brown and Milner also provide us with a list of all of Hebb's publications and the biographies and obituaries that have been published since his death in 1985. The Organization of Behavior's most central theme was that we needed to understand mind and behaviour not in terms of some metaphorical physical device from which principals can be derived by analogy, but rather, to explain them in terms of the machinery of the brain. In this regard, he proposed three key ideas. First, he argued that the synaptic connections between neurons of the cortex increased in efficiency in proportion to a degree to which there had been temporal contiguity in their pre- and post-synaptic physiological activity. …