The study of the mechanisms that govern learning has undoubtedly been influenced by the research on animal learning carried out by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, a name almost as famous as Charles Darwin: many, in fact, remember his experiments with dogs, and that they experienced intense salivation at the sound of a bell that preceded the administration of food. With this Psychology-Online article we will see in detail the famous psychological experiment of Pavlov’s dogtalking about his life, his theories and those of reference, as well as his important scientific discovery.
Biography of Ivan Pavlov
In the biography of the great Russian physiologist, humble origins and brilliant studieschildhood years spent with the godfather, abbot in a monastery, and years of late maturity at the peak of Soviet science, an almost mystical love of the country and international scientific training (Oliviero, 1966).
Ivan Petrovic Pavlov (1849-1936) He was born and raised in the Russian town of Rjazan and, despite the expectations of his family who would have preferred an ecclesiastical career for him, he became interested in science from a young age: after completing his seminary studies, he enrolled at the University of Saint Petersburg, where he graduated Natural Sciences (1875) and in Medicine (1879)to complete his scientific training in Germany.
Upon returning to his homeland, the young Pavlov obtained two important academic roles: he first assumed the position of professor of Pharmacology at the Saint Petersburg Medical Academy (1890), and just a year later, director of the Department of Physiology (1891). . Precisely in these years, in the first period of his scientific production, Pavlov dedicated himself to the study of the functions of the circulatory system and the digestive system, using a rigorous methodology and original techniques (Mecacci, 2020).
In this article we explain in detail the.
Pavlov’s theory of behaviorism
Starting from the analysis of the processes that regulate digestion, Pavlov observed that there was a direct relationship between the onset of salivation and the activation of digestion.: the great idea of the physiologist was precisely to create external stimuli capable of forcibly activating (conditioning) the actions of the organism (Merzagora, 2006), and it is thanks to these particular investigations on the digestive system that he was granted the Nobel Prize 1904 of Physiology and Medicine. Pavlov considered that the understanding of behavior passed exclusively through physiological categories, through the objective observation of the animal’s reactions: he denied any possibility of describing, much less interpreting, thoughts, desires or emotions.
Through his experiments, Ivan Pavlov aimed to shed light “on the apparent chaos of relationships” through which an animal’s behavior adapts to its environment and on the general laws that underlie these changes.
In the years following his discoveries, Conditioned reflexes will become increasingly important in the fields of physiologypsychology and psychiatry, so much so that the Soviet government will donate to Pavlov a magnificent and modern laboratory in Koltushing, where he will continue his research, extending his theory to the study of human psychic processes and psychiatric disorders, until his death in 1936. at the age of 86 (Mecacci, 2020).
In this article you will find the , another relevant author of behaviorism. On the other hand, here you can learn what it is with examples.
classical conditioning
The first systematic studies of learning date back to the first half of the last century, and were carried out in the reflexological and behavioral field, observing the behavior of animals in the laboratory, because the idea was that the learning processes were the same in humans and animals. Pavlov’s studies mainly referred to the way in which learning was developed that led to associating certain responses with certain environmental stimuli: the acquisition of these associations was defined as classical conditioning (Macchi Cassi, Valenza and Simion, 2012).
Pavlovian or classical conditioning explains, in effect, how Automatic responses are associated with stimuli that initially do not provoke any response, or provoke different responses. (Macchi Cassi, Valenza and Simion, 2012). In this article you will find others.
Classical conditioning is also the basis of many treatments for phobias and other emotional disorders: Techniques such as the and the , through the association process, induce a gradual replacement of anxiety and fear before trying a pleasant and relaxed state.
What is Pavlov’s dog experiment?
Pavlov was a Russian physiologist, and his experiments were influenced by this specialization: they measured physiological and gastric indices, and precisely the “salivary responses” of laboratory dogs.
In his most famous experiment, Pavlov presented immediately before the appearance of food (unconditional stimulus) a conditioned stimulusmade up of the sound of a doorbell (Macchi Cassi, Valenza and Simion, 2012). After having repeatedly presented, in a temporal contingency pattern, the bell and the food, the dog began to produce the salivation response every time I heard the doorbellthat is, he began to manifest a behavior that was normally emitted in response to the appearance of food, although in that particular test the food was not administered (Macchi Cassi, Valenza and Simion, 2012).
What are the conclusions of Pavlov’s dog experiment? The results of Pavlov’s experiment indicate that, during the experiment, a association between the sound of the doorbell and food, in such a way that the ringing is a signal of the appearance of the unconditional stimulus and gives a response totally similar to the latter, except for the fact that it is not an innate response, but a learned one (Macchi Cassi, Valenza and Simion, 2012). In other words, the unconditional response originally associated with food has been transformed into a conditioned response to the bell (Macchi Cassi, Valenza and Simion, 2012).
Ivan Pavlov’s studies demonstrate that a stimulus initially incapable of evoking a certain response, if repeatedly presented together with an unconditional stimulus, respecting the rules of temporal contiguity, becomes associated with this and becomes capable of evoking the same behavioral response ( Macchi Cassi, Valenza and Simion, 2012).
The conditioned reflex still represents today the chronicle of a fundamental phase in the history of physiological psychology oriented towards the search for objective parameters and “laws” of learning. In these articles you will find more information about learning: the and the .
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Bibliography
- Macchi Cassia, V., Valenza, E., Simion, F. (2012). The sviluppo of the human mind. Give classical theories to new orientations. Bologna: Il Mulino.
- Mecacci, L. (2020). Pavlov, Ivan Petrovič. Retrieved from: https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/ivan-petrovic-pavlov/
- Merzagora, M. (2006). Scienza da vedere. The large and small scientific image. Milan: Sironi Editore.
- Oliviero, A., (ed.), Pavlov, I. (1966). I riflessi conditioned. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri.