conditioned reflex in dogs
1901 AD Observed
The concept for which Pavlov is famous is the "conditioned reflex" (or in his own words the conditional reflex), which he developed jointly with his assistant Ivan Tolochinov in 1901 (although Edwin B. Twitmyer, at the University of Pennsylvania, published similar research in 1902, a year before Pavlov published his).
The concept was developed after observing the rates of salivation in dogs. Pavlov noticed that his dogs began to salivate in the presence of the technician who normally fed them, rather than simply salivating in the presence of the food. If a buzzer or metronome was sounded before the food was given, the dog would later come to associate the sound with the presentation of the food and salivate upon the presentation of the sound stimulus alone.
Tolochinov, whose own term for the phenomenon had been "reflex at a distance", communicated the results at the Congress of Natural Sciences in Helsinki in 1903.
Later the same year Pavlov more fully explained the findings, at the 14th International Medical Congress in Madrid, where he read a paper titled The Experimental Psychology and Psychopathology of Animals.
As Pavlov's work became known in the West, particularly through the writings of John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner, the idea of "conditioning" as an automatic form of learning became a key concept in the developing specialism of comparative psychology, and the general approach to psychology that underlay it, behaviorism. Pavlov's work with classical conditioning was of huge influence to how humans perceive themselves, their behavior and learning processes and his studies of classical conditioning continue to be central to modern behavior therapy.
The British philosopher Bertrand Russell observed that "[w]hether Pavlov's method's can be made to cover the whole of human behaviour is open to question, but at any rate they cover a very large field and within this field they have shown how to apply scientific methods with quantitative exactitude".
Pavlov's research on conditional reflexes greatly influenced not only science, but also popular culture. Pavlovian conditioning is a major theme in Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel, Brave New World, and in Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.
Lattitude: 59.9343° N
Longitude: 30.3351° E
Region: Russia and Eastern Bloc
Modern Day Russia
Subjects Who or What Observed?
-
Ivan Pavlov Russian physiologist kno...
Timelines (that include this event)
Events in 1901 MORE
