---
title: "The Organization of Behavior"
authors:
  - "Donald O. Hebb"
year: 1949
venue: "Wiley"
arxiv: null
doi: null
source: "https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.226341"
topics:
  - hebbian-learning
  - neuroscience
  - learning
seed_rank: 567
seed_batch: "foundations-greats-2026-08-13"
reviewed: "2026-08-13"
pool: "agents"
relevance_score: 9
lineage: foundations-of-computing
cites:
  - title: "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity"
    url: "https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02478259"
    year: 1943
    arxiv: null
    doi: "10.1007/BF02478259"
see:
  - "565-a-logical-calculus-of-the-ideas-immanent-in-nervous-activity"
---

# The Organization of Behavior

## One-sentence takeaway

Hebb proposes that when cell A repeatedly takes part in firing cell B, A's efficiency in firing B increases — learning as organized neural activity.

## Why it matters here

Every later connectionist and agent-learning update is a descendant of this "fire together, wire together" rule, even when the algebra is SGD.

## Key ideas

- The Hebb synapse is a local, correlational growth rule, not a global error signal.
- Cell assemblies are reverberating coalitions that persist after the stimulus and constitute short-term thought.
- Phase sequences chain assemblies into longer behavior; perception and learning share the same organization.
- The book is a neuropsychological theory of the whole organism, not only a synaptic slogan.
- Original: Wiley, New York, 1949; modern reprints follow the Erlbaum 2002 text.

## Caveats

## Links

- URL: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.226341