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Home Perspectives Behaviorism Ivan Pavlov
Pavlov's Dogs
by Saul McLeod published 2007, updated 2013
Like many great scientic advances, classical conditioning was discovered accidentally.
During the 1890s 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. At rst this was something of a nuisance (not to mention
messy!).
Pavlovian Conditioning
Pavlov (1902) started from the idea that there are some things that a dog does not need to learn. For
example, dogs dont learn to salivate whenever they see food. This reex is hard wired into the dog.
In behaviorist terms, it is an unconditioned response (i.e. a stimulus-response connection that
required no learning). In behaviorist terms, we write:
Unconditioned Stimulus (Food) > Unconditioned Response (Salivate)
Pavlov showed the existence of the unconditioned response by presenting a dog with a bowl of food and the measuring its salivary secretions (see
image below).
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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 scientic discovery, and he devoted the rest of his career to studying this type of learning.
Pavlov knew that somehow, the dogs in his lab had learned to associate food with his lab assistant. This must have been learned, because at one
point the dogs did not do it, and there came a point where they started, so their behavior had changed. A change in behavior of this type must be the
result of learning.
In behaviorist terms, the lab assistant was originally a neutral stimulus. It is called neutral because it produces no response. What had happened was
that the neutral stimulus (the lab assistant) had become associated with an unconditioned stimulus (food).
In his experiment, Pavlov used a bell as his neutral stimulus. Whenever he gave food to his dogs, he also rang a bell. After a number of repeats of
this procedure, he tried the bell on its own. As you might expect, the bell on its own now caused an increase in salivation.
So the dog had learned an association between the bell and the food and a new behavior had been learnt. Because this response was learned (or
conditioned), it is called a conditioned response. The neutral stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus.
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Pavlov found that for associations to be made, the two stimuli had to be presented close together in time. He called this the law of temporal
contiguity. If the time between the conditioned stimulus (bell) and unconditioned stimulus (food) is too great, then learning will not occur.
Pavlov and his studies of classical conditioning have become famous since his early work between 1890-1930. Classical conditioning is "classical"
in that it is the rst systematic study of basic laws of learning / conditioning.
Summary
To summarize, classical conditioning (later developed by John Watson) involves learning to associate an unconditioned stimulus that already brings
about a particular response (i.e. a reex) with a new (conditioned) stimulus, so that the new stimulus brings about the same response.
Pavlov developed some rather unfriendly technical terms to describe this process. The unconditioned stimulus (or UCS) is the object or event that
originally produces the reexive / natural response.
The response to this is called the unconditioned response (or UCR). The neutral stimulus (NS) is a new stimulus that does not produce a response.
Once the neutral stimulus has become associated with the unconditioned stimulus, it becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS). The conditioned
response (CR) is the response to the conditioned stimulus.
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References
Pavlov, I. P. (1897/1902). The Work Of The Digestive Glands. London: Grifn.
Pavlov, I. P. (1928). Lectures On Conditioned Reexes.(Translated by W.H. Gantt) London: Allen and Unwin.
Pavlov, I. P. (1955). Selected Works. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.
Further Information
Behaviorism
Classical Conditioning
Operant Conditioning
Listen to a MIT undergraduate lecture on Conditioning
Classical Conditioning
Learning and Behavior
How to cite this article:
McLeod, S. A. (2007). Pavlov's Dogs. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html
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131 weeks ago
so helpful! thanks so much!
105 weeks ago
Simple and precise, thanks!
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61 weeks ago
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47 weeks ago
thnxxxx it really helped me in my assignmnt wrks.
45 weeks ago
thanks so much this really helped with my project bless who made this website
43 weeks ago
Thanks for sharing that is really very helpful website.
41 weeks ago
wow its really helpful
39 weeks ago
thnxx it really helped me in my teaching practice
39 weeks ago
I once had the occasion to sit next to an aluminum siding salesman at a bar. he proceeded to explain to me how he "conditioned" his prospective
buyers. Upon arriving at the prospects home the husband and wife would almost always usher him into the living room. He would tell them it would
be easier to see his samples in the kitchen light, and all would move to the kitchen. He would then tell the husband to sit "here", and the wife to this
"there". And they would obey. He would then ask the housewife for a glass of water, and she would oblige. They were being conditioned to obey his
commands, so that when he produced the sales agreement and told them to "sign here", they would sign.
It was not unlike the Catholic Masses' which I attended when I was a child and a believer. A bell would be rung and all the people would stand. The
bell would ring again and all would kneel. And again the bell would command all to sit. Stand, kneel, sit, believe. Stand, kneel, sit, believe. And, with
rare exception, the tinkle of a little bell made them all believers.
39 weeks ago
Ivan Pavlov's experiment was successful in proving that a dog does not to learn everything. Some methods are based so stimulus, reexes, and
conditions that the dog is put through. The dog was put under the study of behaviorism and how he was acquired to alter his responses due to the
environmental processes he was put in. Dogs do no need to learn how to salivate, they salivate on their own in the presence of food or hen they are
triggered by something in this case a bell that food is coming. The dog begins to tie it together that when the bell rings food will appear.
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