Biography
Born on September 14, 1849, in Ryazan, Russia, Ivan Pavlov abandoned his early theological schooling to study science. His groundbreaking work on the digestive systems of dogs earned him the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1904. He was greatly inspired by the ideas of Charles Darwin as well as the father of Russian Physiology, I. M. Sechenov, and was most well known for his Pavlovian Conditioning Theory. Pavlov remained an active researcher until his death on February 27, 1936.
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Classical Conditioning
During the 1890's, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov was looking at salivation in dogs in response to being fed, when he noticed that his dogs would begin to salivate whenever he entered the room, even when he was not bringing them food. Pavlov showed the existence of the unconditioned response by presenting a dog with a bowl of food and the measuring its salivary secretions. However, when Pavlov discovered that any object or event which the dogs learnt to associate with food (such as the lab assistant) would trigger the same response, he realized that he had made an important scientific discovery. Accordingly, he devoted the rest of his career to studying this type of learning.
"Pavlov's Dogs"
Key Concepts & Vocab
Classical Conditioning: a form of learning in which an organism "learns" through establishing associations between different events and stimuli
Unconditioned Stimulus: any stimulus that can evoke a response without the organism going through any previous learning; the response to the unconditioned response occurs naturally
Unconditioned Response: an automatic reaction to something
Extinction: the disappearance of a previously learned behavior when the behavior is not reinforced
Conditioned Response: an automatic response established by training to an ordinarily neutral stimulus
Spontaneous Recovery: it refers to the reappearance of the conditioned response after a rest period or period of lessened response
Generalization: the tendency to respond in the same way to different but similar stimuli
Discrimination: the ability to perceive and respond to differences among stimuli
Unconditioned Stimulus: any stimulus that can evoke a response without the organism going through any previous learning; the response to the unconditioned response occurs naturally
Unconditioned Response: an automatic reaction to something
Extinction: the disappearance of a previously learned behavior when the behavior is not reinforced
Conditioned Response: an automatic response established by training to an ordinarily neutral stimulus
Spontaneous Recovery: it refers to the reappearance of the conditioned response after a rest period or period of lessened response
Generalization: the tendency to respond in the same way to different but similar stimuli
Discrimination: the ability to perceive and respond to differences among stimuli