30 Facts About Karl Lashley

Karl Spencer Lashley was an American psychologist and behaviorist remembered for his contributions to the study of learning and memory.

Karl Lashley was born on June 7,1890 in the town of Davis, West Virginia.

Karl Lashley was the only child of Charles and Maggie Lashley.

Karl Lashley grew up in a middle-class family with a reasonably comfortable life.

Karl Lashley's mother was a stay-at-home parent, and had a vast collection of books in the home.

Karl Lashley brought in women from the community, whom she would teach various subjects.

Karl Lashley has said that his father was a kind man.

Karl Lashley's mother was a strong advocate of schooling, and she encouraged Karl Lashley intellectually from an early age.

Karl Lashley was a very active boy, both physically and mentally.

Karl Lashley enrolled at West Virginia University, where he had originally intended to become an English major.

Karl Lashley took a course in zoology and switched his major to zoology due to his interactions with the professor John Black Johnston.

Karl Lashley wrote, "Within a few weeks in his class I knew that I had found my life's work".

Once Karl Lashley completed his master's degree, he studied at Johns Hopkins University, where he received his PhD in genetics in June 1911.

Karl Lashley became a professor at University of Minnesota, University of Chicago, and Harvard University.

At Hopkins, Lashley minored in psychology under John B Watson, whom he continued to work closely with him after receiving his PhD.

Watson helped Karl Lashley to focus on specific problems in learning and experimental investigation, followed by locating the area of the cerebrum involved in learning and discrimination.

Karl Lashley's career began with research concerning brain mechanisms and how they were related to sense receptors.

Karl Lashley conducted work on instinct as well as color vision.

Karl Lashley studied many animals and primates, which had been an interest since his freshman year at college.

Karl Lashley worked at the University of Minnesota from 1917 to 1926 and then at the Institute for Juvenile Research in Chicago before becoming a professor at the University of Chicago.

Karl Lashley researched this by looking at the measurement of behavior before and after specific, carefully quantified, induced brain damage in rats.

Karl Lashley trained rats to perform specific tasks, then lesioned specific areas of the rats' cortex, either before or after the animals received the training.

Karl Lashley reached this erroneous conclusion due to imperfect lesioning methods.

In February 1954, while doing his teaching at Harvard, Karl Lashley unexpectedly collapsed and was hospitalized.

Karl Lashley was diagnosed with hemolytic anemia and put on a cortisone treatment.

Karl Lashley was on the road to a full recovery until his trip to France with his wife Clair, where he unexpectedly collapsed, but this time to his death on August 7,1958.

In 1938, Karl Lashley was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States, dating to 1743.

In 1943, Karl Lashley was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.

Karl Lashley was awarded honorary Doctor of Science degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Chicago, Western Reserve University, the University of Pennsylvania; in 1953, Johns Hopkins University presented him with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

Karl Lashley had a reputation as an objective scientist, but Nadine Weidman has tried to expose him as a racist and a genetic determinist.