Who is Ivan Pavlov? Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist and researcher. He lived between 1849 and 1936 and contributed much to scientific thought. He won the Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1904. Pavlov started his career in theology but later abandoned religion in favor of science. He is best known for his work with dogs and his theory of classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is a type of learning that had a major influence on the chool of thought in psychologyknown as behaviorism. Discovered by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, Pavlov, classical conditioningis a learning process that occurs through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus.Behaviorism is based on the assumption that learning occurs through interactions with the environment. Two other assumptions of this theory are that the environment shapes behavior and thattaking internal mental states such as thoughts, feelings, and emotions into consideration is useless in explaining behavior. It's important to note that classical conditioning involves placing a neutral signal before a naturally occurring reflex. In Pavlov's classic experiment with dogs, the neutral signal was the sound of a tone and the naturally occurring reflex was salivating in response to food. By associating the neutral stimulus with the environmental stimulus (the presentation of food), the sound of the tone alone could produce the salivation response. In order to understand how more about how classical conditioning works, it is important to be familiar with the basic principles of the process. What is Classical Conditioning? Classical conditioning is the process of learning a new behavior through stimuli in the environment. In this process, a new behavior that was previous autonomic or unconscious can become tied to a stimulus. Learning, therefore, occurs through interaction with the environment. It involves a neutral stimulus, an unconditioned stimulus, a conditioned stimulus, an unconditioned response, and a conditioned response.
Classical conditioning (also conditioning (also Pavlovian conditioning or conditioning or respondent conditioning) conditioning) is a kind of learning that occurs when a conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US). Usually, the CS is a neutral stimulus (e.g., the sound of a tuning fork), the US is biologically potent (e.g., the taste of food) and the unconditioned response (UR) to the US is an unlearned reflex response (e.g., salivation). After pairing is repeated repea ted (some learning may occur o ccur already after only one pairing), p airing), the organism exhibits exhib its a conditioned response (CR) to the CS when the CS is presented alone. The CR is usually similar to the UR (see below), but unlike the UR, it must be acquired through experience and is relatively impermanent. Classical conditioning differs from operant or or instrumental conditioning, conditioning, in which a behavior is strengthened or weakened, depending on its consequences (i.e., reward or punishment). A classic experiment by Ivan Pavlov exemplifies the standard procedure used in classical conditioning..] First Pavlov observed the UR (salivation) produced when meat powder (US) was placed in conditioning
the dog's mouth. He then rang a bell (CS) before giving the meat powder. After some repetitions of this pairing of bell and meat the dog salivated to the bell alone, demonstrating what Pavlov called a "conditional" response, now commonly termed "conditioned response" or CR. In conditioning the CS is not simply connected to UR. For example, the CR usually differs in some way from the UR; sometimes it is a lot different. For this and other reasons, learning theorists commonly suggest that the CS comes to signal or predict the US, and go on to analyze the consequences of this signal. Robert A. Rescorl a provided a clear summary of this change in thinking, and its implications, in his 1988 article "Pavlovian conditioning: It's not what you think it is."[5]
Pavlov's Discovery of Conditioning This mode of learning was demonstrated by the experiments of Ivan Pavlov, who decided to research conditioning after discovering during separate gastric tests that his dog subjects began to salivatenot only when meat powder was presented to them, but more significantly, when the person feeding them came into proximity with them. The dogs had been inadvertently trained through classical conditioning to associate the person feeding them with the food itself, and reacted in a similar way (salivation) to the feeders. This is known as a stimulus-response (SR), when salivation becomes a responsive action to the stimulus of the person feeding the dogs:
