Donald Olding Hebb FRS (July 22, 1904 – August 20, 1985) was a Canadian
psychologist who was influential in the area of
neuropsychology, where he sought to understand how the function of
neurons contributed to psychological processes such as
learning. He is best known for his theory of
Hebbian learning, which he introduced in his classic 1949 work
The Organization of Behavior. He has been described as the father of neuropsychology and
neural networks. A
Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Hebb as the 19th most cited psychologist of the 20th century. His views on learning described behavior and thought in terms of brain function, explaining cognitive processes in terms of connections between neuron assemblies.