Hebbian Learning
What is Hebbian Learning?
Hebbian Learning explains how neurons adapt and form stronger connections through repeated use. Each time a memory is recalled or an action is repeated, the neural pathways involved become more robust as they fire together, making that action or memory more intuitive or easy to reproduce.
The Basic Idea
If you’ve ever tried to learn a new skill, you’ll have experienced Hebbian Learning (although you may have just thought of it as ‘learning’). Take driving, for instance. When you start out, everything you do is incredibly deliberate. You remind yourself to turn on your indicator, to check your blind spot, and so on. However, after years of experience, these processes become so automatic that you perform them without even thinking.
The neuroscientific concept of Hebbian learning was introduced by Donald Hebb in his 1949 publication of The Organization of Behaviour. Also known as Hebb’s Rule or Cell Assembly Theory, Hebbian Learning attempts to connect the psychological and neurological underpinnings of learning.
The basis of the theory is when our brains learn something new, neurons are activated and connected with other neurons, forming a neural network. These connections start off weak, but each time the stimulus is repeated, the connections grow stronger and stronger, and the action becomes more intuitive.
A good example is the act of learning to drive. When you start out, everything you do is incredibly deliberate. You remind yourself to turn on your indicator, to check your blind spot, and so on. However, after years of experience, these processes become so automatic that you perform them without even thinking.
Neurons that fire together, wire together.
– Donald Hebb
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Dr. Sekoul Krastev is a decision scientist and Co-Founder of The Decision Lab, one of the world's leading behavioral science consultancies. His team works with large organizations—Fortune 500 companies, governments, foundations and supernationals—to apply behavioral science and decision theory for social good. He holds a PhD in neuroscience from McGill University and is currently a visiting scholar at NYU. His work has been featured in academic journals as well as in The New York Times, Forbes, and Bloomberg. He is also the author of Intention (Wiley, 2024), a bestselling book on the science of human agency. Before founding The Decision Lab, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group and Google.
