On Wed, 10 Nov 1999, Mike Scoles wrote:
> This is fascinating. Where did this story come from?
>
> --Michael Sylvester wrote:
>
> > Did Donald Hebb lived in a rat infested house?
> > And is it true that he adopted some of those rats as his personal pets
> > and when they died he examined their brains and hence formulated
> > his idea of cell assemblies?
> > Apparently,it was alleged that those rats in his enriched
> > environment household had unique cell assemblies than those lurking
> > around the garbage cans outside the house.
Let me have a crack at this. First, my credentials: the first course I
ever took in psychology was from Donald Hebb. Unaware of his status at
the time as Canada's psychological National Treasure, I was not
impressed with his lectures, although I enjoyed his rather unusual,
idiosyncratic slim textbook called (what else) _A Textbook of
Psychology_. It was certainly much easier to carry around than modern
introductory textbooks.
As for the irrepressible Michael's story, I've never heard it.
However, it may have a germ of truth in that he initiated one of the
first experiments on the effects of deprivation of early experience. I
don't have the original at hand (Hebb, 1947) but I do have the
published version of a Ph.D. study it inspired (Hymovitch, 1952). In
it Hymovitch refers to Hebb's experiment as involving presumably
control rats raised as "pets" [quotes in the original]. Similarly,
another famous deprivation experiment carried out in his laboratory by
Ronald Melzack used Sottish Terrier dogs reared as pets as controls.
Melzack discovered the deprived dogs had abnormal responses to pain,
starting him on his life-long career in this area.
As for cell assemblies, I believe they were purely an abstract concept
for Hebb, and he never made any attempt to locate them in the brain.
I'll send this note on to a presently-unsubscribed TIPSter whom I
think may have been a graduate student of Hebb's. Perhaps he'll have
more to say on the topic.
-Stephen
References
Hebb, D. O. (1947) The effects of early experience on problem-solving
at maturity. American Psychologist, 2, 306-307.
Hymovitch, B. (1952). The effects of experimental variations on
problem solving in the rat. Journal of comparative and
physiological psychology, 45, 313--
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Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC
J1M 1Z7
Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at:
http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips/
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