Pavlov’s discovery of classical conditioning re-energized older associative models of psychology derived from British empiricist philosophy. He and his co-workers discovered nearly every aspect related to conditioning. As this chapter will show, many of their original ideas are still being explored and expanded today.
Pavlovian conditioning-the pairing in time between a neutral stimulus and a stimulus that DOES cause a consistent physiological response so that, over time, the neutral stimulus comes to cause the SAME physiological response.
Son of a priest Russian Orthodox priest (they are allowed to marry)
Started at U. of St. Petersburg same year that Sechenov left (never knew each other)
Worked with Botkin, Pavlov supervised many graduate students
Spoiler Alert: that helped Pavlov become an accomplished laboratory manager later
Marriage helped him work ever harder
Wife only required he not drink alcohol and leave the lab on weekends
Studied with Carl Ludwig in Germany
developed surgical skills
Appointed to Military Medical Medical School in St. Petersburg
Became director of Institute of Behavioral Medicine as well
Began to study digestion
Student of his discovered that dogs would salivate to non-food cues
Memorial to Pavlov's dogs: Photo (by the late Chris Spatz) That's Chris climbing the fence on a Saturday; the lab was closed. An AK-47 toting guard showed up and Chris explained they were visiting American psychologists. The guard allowed them a brief visit.
Notice bas reliefs of Pavlov's lab on the base
Worked out the details of digestion over a seven year period
Lab included women and Jews, unusual in Czarist Russia
Yekaterina Shumova-Simonovskaya (Hill, 2019) pioneered the surgical creation of gastric pouches, or flaps designed to catch food swallowed before it reached the stomach (sham feeding), and the successful insertion of tubes (fistulas) into the various glands of the digestive system.
Pavlov won Nobel Prize in 1904 for research in DIGESTION (not psychology)
Pavlov's student Ivan Tolochinov, first noticed that dogs began to salivate to non-food cues; that they were learning to anticipate food when it was paired with a neutral stimulus. (Windholz, 1989)
Quickly, Pavlov moved to research that new datum
Pavlov was one of the first practitioners of "big science" (Hill, 2019)
His lab concentrated on the conditioning of autonomic responses
Spoiler Alert: Bekhterev applied Pavlovian conditioning to voluntary responses later
Pavlov visited United States where his research influenced the growing behaviorist movement
He was mugged, apparently, during his 1923 visit to New York
Jaws and classical conditioning
Spielberg used the now familiar eerie theme music to prepare the audience for their eventual first view of the shark late in the movie. Second appearance of shark in Jaws: video "You're going to need a bigger boat."
Music is conditioned stimulus the shark is the unconditioned stimulus
The audience never sees the shark until the "you are going to need a bigger boat" scene above
Pavlov: Video
Notice how the dog eventually salivates to the metronome
Ivan P. Pavlov (1849-1936): Physiologist studying digestion Pavlov graphic (hit browser Back button to return) BTW, I made this image in the 1990s using a four inch hand scanner
Classical Conditioning
Initial observations: salivating dogs
UCS-->UCR (a.k.a. reflexes)
Newborn human reflexes: sucking, rooting, swallowing, sneezing, Moro, Babinski, toe grasp, palmar grasp, swimming, stepping
CS-->UCS (shorthand for classical conditioning)
Few UCSs exist (pleasure, pain, mirth, food, drink, disgust...)
Many, many CSs exist (metronomes, bells, lights, smells...)
There are two timelines. One shows the CS coming on and off and the UCS coming on and off
Delayed: CS precedes and overlaps with UCS
Trace: CS precedes, goes off, then UCS goes on and off
Four second trace elicits conditioning, 15 second trace or longer leads to no conditioning (but see Garcia's research, some CS/UCS combinations are possible)
Simultaneous: CS and UCS at same time. No conditioning established (shows that the CS PREDICTS the UCS)
