Ivan Pavlov

Overview

Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who won the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work on the digestive glands, not for the conditioning research he is now known for. The conditioning work began as an interruption to the digestion studies: his dogs started salivating before food arrived, in response to the attendant's footsteps, and Pavlov chose to investigate the anomaly rather than control it away. By pairing a neutral signal with food and measuring saliva by the drop, he turned learning into something with a number attached, and he mapped acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, and generalisation as orderly processes. He regarded himself as a physiologist throughout and was sceptical of psychology as a discipline, but his methods gave behaviourism its experimental core. Read the first lectures of Conditioned Reflexes, which describe the discovery directly.

Where to start reading

• Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex 1927

  The lecture series that lays out the whole conditioning programme, from the accidental first observation through acquisition, extinction, and generalisation.

• Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes 1928

  A collection of shorter papers and addresses, extending the laboratory findings toward psychiatry and the nervous system.

Part of

• Behaviourism

Sources

1. Conditioned Reflexes Classics in the History of Psychology, York UniversityThe full 1927 text in English, free.
2. Ivan Pavlov - Facts The Nobel PrizeConfirms that the prize was awarded for the digestion research, which is often misreported.
3. Ivan Pavlov Wikipedia