Frank Rosenblatt (July 11, 1928July 11, 1971) was an American psychologist notable in the field of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech ...

. He is sometimes called the father of

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Life and career

Rosenblatt was born in

New Rochelle, New York New Rochelle (; older french: La Nouvelle-Rochelle) is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state. In 2020, the city had a population of 79,726, making it the seventh-largest in the state o ...

as son of Dr. Frank and Katherine Rosenblatt. After graduating from

The Bronx High School of Science The Bronx High School of Science, commonly called Bronx Science, is a public specialized high school in The Bronx in New York City. It is operated by the New York City Department of Education. Admission to Bronx Science involves passing the Sp ...

in 1946, he attended

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

, where he obtained his A.B. in 1950 and his Ph.D. in 1956. He then went to Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory in Buffalo, New York, where he was successively a research psychologist, senior psychologist, and head of the cognitive systems section. This is also where he conducted the early work on perceptrons, which culminated in the development and hardware construction of the Mark I Perceptron in 1960. This was essentially the first computer that could learn new skills by trial and error, using a type of neural network that simulates human thought processes. Rosenblatt's research interests were exceptionally broad. In 1959 he went to Cornell's Ithaca campus as director of the Cognitive Systems Research Program and also as a lecturer in the Psychology Department. In 1966 he joined the Section of

Neurobiology Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developme ...

and Behavior within the newly formed Division of

Biological Sciences Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...

, as associate professor. Also in 1966, he became fascinated with the transfer of learned behavior from trained to naive rats by the injection of brain extracts, a subject on which he would publish extensively in later years. In 1970 he became field representative for the Graduate Field of Neurobiology and Behavior, and in 1971 he shared the acting chairmanship of the Section of Neurobiology and Behavior. Frank Rosenblatt died in July 1971 on his 43rd birthday, in a boating accident in

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Academic interests

Perceptron

Rosenblatt was best known for the Perceptron, an electronic device which was constructed in accordance with biological principles and showed an ability to learn. Rosenblatt's perceptrons were initially simulated on an

IBM 704 The IBM 704 is a large digital mainframe computer introduced by IBM in 1954. It was the first mass-produced computer with hardware for floating-point arithmetic. The IBM 704 ''Manual of operation'' states: The type 704 Electronic Data-Proce ...

computer at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory in 1957. When a triangle was held before the perceptron's eye, it would pick up the image and convey it along a random succession of lines to the response units, where the image was registered. He developed and extended this approach in numerous papers and a book calle
''Principles of Neurodynamics: Perceptrons and the Theory of Brain Mechanisms''
published by Spartan Books in 1962. He received international recognition for the Perceptron.

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billed it as a revolution, with the headline “New Navy Device Learns By Doing”, and

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similarly admired the technological advancement. Research on comparable devices was also being done in other places such as

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, and many researchers had big expectations on what they could do. The initial excitement became somewhat reduced, though, when in 1969

Marvin Minsky Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory ...

and

Seymour Papert Seymour Aubrey Papert (; 29 February 1928 – 31 July 2016) was a South African-born American mathematician, computer scientist, and educator, who spent most of his career teaching and researching at MIT. He was one of the pioneers of artificia ...

published the book “Perceptrons” with a mathematical proof about the limitations of two-layer feed-forward perceptrons as well as unproven claims about the difficulty of training multi-layer perceptrons. The book's only proven result—that linear functions cannot model non-linear ones—was trivial but the book had nevertheless a pronounced effect on research funding and, consequently, the community. After research on neural networks returned to the mainstream in the 1980s, new researchers started to study Rosenblatt's work again. This new wave of study on neural networks is interpreted by some researchers as being a contradiction of hypotheses presented in the book Perceptrons, and a confirmation of Rosenblatt's expectations. The Mark I Perceptron, which is generally recognized as a forerunner to artificial intelligence, currently resides in the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Found ...

in Washington D.C. MARK 1 was able to learn, to recognize letters, and could solve quite complex problems. Rosenblatt's Book Rosenblatt's book ''Principles of Neurodynamics: Perceptrons and the Theory of Brain Mechanisms'', published by Spartan Books in 1962, summarized his work on perceptrons at the time. The book is divided into four parts. The first gives an historical review of alternative approaches to brain modeling, the physiological and psychological considerations, and the basic definitions and concepts of the perceptron approach. The second covers three-layer series-coupled perceptrons: the mathematical underpinnings, performance results in psychological experiments, and a variety of perceptron variations. The third covers multi-layer and cross-coupled perceptrons, and the fourth back-coupled perceptrons and problems for future study. Rosenblatt used the book to teach an interdisciplinary course entitled "Theory of Brain Mechanisms" that drew students from Cornell's Engineering and Liberal Arts colleges.

Rat brain experiments

Around the late 1960s, Rosenblatt began experiments within the Cornell Department of

Entomology Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as ara ...

on the transfer of learned behavior via rat brain extracts. Rats were taught discrimination tasks such as Y-maze and two-lever Skinner box. Then their brains were extracted and injected into untrained rats that were subsequently tested in the discrimination tasks to determine whether or not there was behavior transfer from the trained to the untrained rats. Rosenblatt spent his last several years on this problem and showed convincingly that the initial reports of larger effects were wrong and that any memory transfer was at most very small.

Other interests

Astronomy

Rosenblatt also had a serious research interest in

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...

and proposed a new technique to detect the presence of stellar satellites. He built an observatory on a hilltop behind his house in Brooktondale about 6 miles east of Ithaca. When construction on the observatory was completed, Rosenblatt began an intensive study on SETI (Search for

Extraterrestrial Intelligence Extraterrestrial intelligence (often abbreviated ETI) refers to hypothetical intelligent extraterrestrial life. The question of whether other inhabited worlds might exist has been debated since ancient times. The modern form of the concept emerged ...

Politics

Rosenblatt was very active in liberal politics. He worked in the

Eugene McCarthy Eugene Joseph McCarthy (March 29, 1916December 10, 2005) was an American politician, writer, and academic from Minnesota. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. ...

primary campaigns for president in

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and

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in 1968 and in a series of

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protest activities in Washington.

IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Award

The

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

(IEEE), the world's largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity, named its annual award in honor of Frank Rosenblatt.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosenblatt, Frank 1928 births 1971 deaths Scientists from New Rochelle, New York 20th-century American psychologists Cornell University alumni The Bronx High School of Science alumni History of artificial intelligence Boating accident deaths Cornell University faculty Jewish American scientists