A
Physiologist by training, Ivan Pavlov's most famous experiment
in psychology began as a study of digestion. Although
very concerned with biases and controlling for variables,
during his experiment he noticed that his subjects (dogs)
would illicit a salivation response prior to being presented
with food. He began to explore this phenomenon and
eventually developed one of the most applauded behavioral
studies on conditioning that won him the Nobel Prize.
Classical
conditioning refers to the phenomenon of stimulus pairing
that result in similar responses. In other words, when
food (referred to as the unconditioned or unlearned
stimulus) is paired with the sound of a bell, the sound
of the bell (called the conditioned or learned stimulus)
eventually results in the same response
(salivation).
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A
Physiologist by training, Ivan Pavlov's most famous experiment
in psychology began as a study of digestion. Although
very concerned with biases and controlling for variables,
during his experiment he noticed that his subjects (dogs)
would illicit a salivation response prior to being presented
with food. He began to explore this phenomenon and
eventually developed one of the most applauded behavioral
studies on conditioning that won him the Nobel Prize.