Karl Lashley facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Karl Spencer Lashley
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| Born | June 7, 1890 |
| Died | August 7, 1958 (aged 68) Poitiers, France
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| Alma mater | Johns Hopkins University |
| Known for | Learning and memory |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Psychology |
| Institutions | University of Minnesota, University of Chicago, Harvard University |
| Doctoral advisor | Herbert S. Jennings |
Karl Spencer Lashley (born June 7, 1890 – died August 7, 1958) was an American scientist who studied the mind. He is famous for his work on how we learn and remember things. He was a behaviorist, which means he focused on how actions are learned and changed. In 2002, a study showed that Lashley was one of the most often mentioned psychologists of the 20th century.
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Growing Up and School
Karl Lashley was born on June 7, 1890, in Davis, West Virginia. He was the only child of Charles and Maggie Lashley. His family was not rich but lived comfortably. Karl's dad worked in local government. His mom stayed home and had many books. She even taught other women from the community. This helped Karl love learning from a young age. He always spoke highly of his parents.
Karl's mom really believed in education. She encouraged him to learn from when he was very small. Karl was an active boy, both in his body and his mind. He could read by the time he was four years old. As a child, he loved to explore the woods. He would collect animals like butterflies and mice. He spent most of his childhood by himself and did not have many friends. Karl finished high school when he was only 14.
Lashley first went to West Virginia University. He planned to study English there. But then he took a class about animals, called zoology. He liked it so much that he changed his major. He wrote that he knew he had found his life's work after just a few weeks in that class.
After getting his first degree, Lashley taught biology at the University of Pittsburgh. He also did research for his master's degree there. Later, he went to Johns Hopkins University. He earned his PhD in genetics in 1911. After that, he became a professor at several universities. These included the University of Minnesota, University of Chicago, and Harvard University.
At Johns Hopkins, Lashley also studied psychology. He worked closely with a famous psychologist named John B. Watson. Watson was a big influence on Lashley. They did experiments together, like studying how different drugs affected rats learning their way through a maze. Watson helped Lashley focus on how the brain helps us learn.
His Work and Discoveries
Lashley started his career by studying how the brain works. He looked at how the brain connects to our senses. He also studied animal instincts and how animals see colors. He was interested in animals and primates since he started college.
Lashley worked at the University of Minnesota for many years. Then he worked in Chicago before becoming a professor at the University of Chicago. After that, he went to Harvard. He later became the director of a lab that studied primates in Florida.
Lashley's most important research was about how the brain's outer layer, called the cerebral cortex, helps us learn and tell things apart. He trained rats to do tasks, like finding food. Then, he would carefully remove small parts of their brains. He did this either before or after they learned the task.
He found that removing parts of the brain affected how well the rats learned or remembered. But it did not matter where in the brain the part was removed. This made Lashley think that memories are not stored in just one place. He believed they were spread out all over the brain. Today, we know that memories are indeed spread out. However, they are not spread equally everywhere, as Lashley thought.
By the 1950s, two main ideas came from Lashley's research:
- Mass Action: This idea says that how well you learn depends on how much brain tissue is available. If a lot of brain tissue is damaged after learning, performance gets worse. It matters more how much tissue is damaged, not where it is.
- Equipotentiality: This idea means that one part of the brain's cortex can sometimes take over the job of another part. So, to completely stop a brain function, all the tissue in that specific area must be damaged. If not, another part might be able to do the job.
These two ideas came from Lashley's studies on how the brain's cortex helps with learning.
Later Life and Awards
In 1954, while teaching at Harvard, Lashley became very sick. He was diagnosed with a blood problem and had surgery. He was getting better, but then he collapsed again while on a trip to France with his wife. He passed away on August 7, 1958.
Lashley was chosen to be a member of many important science groups. These included the American Psychological Association, where he was president in 1929. He was also elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1930. In 1938, he became a member of the American Philosophical Society, which is a very old and respected group. Since 1957, this society has given out an award named after Karl Spencer Lashley for brain research. In 1943, he received the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal for his work.
Lashley also received special honorary degrees from several universities. These included the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Chicago, and Johns Hopkins University.
Important Writings
- 1929: "Brain mechanisms and intelligence."
- 1930: "Basic neural mechanisms in behavior." Psychological Review
- 1932: "Studies in the dynamics of behavior." University of Chicago Press.
- 1950: "In search of the engram." Society of Experimental Biology Symposium 4: 454–482.
- 1951: "The problem of serial order in behavior." Cerebral Mechanisms in Behavior.
See also
- Sequence learning
