The Organization of Behavior Quotes

“The law of effect is roughly this. An act that is closely followed by satisfaction, pleasure, or comfort will be learned; one that is followed by discomfort, forgotten or eliminated.”
― D.O. Hebb, The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory

“Let us assume that the persistence or repetition of a reverberatory activity (or "trace") tends to induce lasting cellular changes that add to its stability. ... When an axon of cell A is near enough to excite a cell B and repeatedly or persistently takes part in firing it, some growth process or metabolic change takes place in one or both cells such that A’s efficiency, as one of the cells firing B, is increased.”
― D.O. Hebb, The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory

“So also with the effect of set on perception (perceptual set is another aspect of the phase sequence, closely related to attention). It has been shown that in certain circumstances one sees what one expects, or is set, to see. But this is no general rule, else one would be incapable of seeing the unexpected. When a stimulation is sufficiently strong or distinctive from its background, and familiar or composed of familiar parts, it will be capable of initiating its own phase sequence, regardless of what other phase sequence may be going on at the moment. (If the new phase sequence is incompatible with the pre-existing one, startle or emotion may result.) The sensory event is capable of taking control of central action, just as in other circumstances the central action is capable of reinforcing one sensory event at the expense of a second.”
― D.O. Hebb, The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory

“At a purely descriptive level, this aspect of behavior must be considered when one attempts to deal with species differences. It seems first that the duration of the selectivity—the amount of time likely to be spent continuously in one kind of activity—may vary for higher and lower species. Periods of spontaneous play are shorter in the rat than in the dog, and still shorter than in man; the period of emotional disturbance following momentary stimulation seems progressively shorter as one goes down the phylogenetic scale; and so on. Secondly, the number and variety of the distinctive forms of behavior involved is greater in higher species—the number of recognizably different attitudes or interests, that is, is greater. And, finally, the variability of action that still remains selective is also greater in higher species: an aggressive attitude, for example, has a much more variable expression in the chimpanzee than in the dog.”
― D.O. Hebb, The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory

“After reaching the food box the animal may turn and explore a blind alley, or retrace the entire maze (sometimes without a single error). His return to the food box is usually at a higher speed than the first part of the run, and he eats enthusiastically—on the second time of reaching food. Behavior is determined by the central phase sequence, and this means that the sequence is recurrent as well as anticipatory. Similarly, “mental backtracking” is reported by the blindfold human subject learning a stylus maze (Woodworth, 1938, p. 143).”
― D.O. Hebb, The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory

“A was originally organized by an interaction of hearing, touch, and vision. Once organized, it may be aroused by hearing alone, or perhaps by hearing and touch; but the essential association between A and B, resulting from simultaneous activity, would be the same whether each was aroused by vision, or whether one was aroused by hearing and the other by touch. In”
― D.O. Hebb, The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory

“A constant net result, when a stimulus is repeated, requires some constancy in the spontaneous activity in the association areas upon which the afferent activity impinges. The perceptual learning that has been schematized in the preceding chapters depends on some consistent central action of a repeated stimulus.”
― D.O. Hebb, The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory