Pavlov Born: Pioneer of Behavioral Science
Pavlov didn't set out to study learning. He was studying digestion. Specifically, how dogs salivated when presented with food. Then he noticed the dogs were salivating before the food arrived — when they heard the footsteps of the lab assistant who usually brought it. The association had been learned without any intention. He spent the next thirty years mapping the mechanism with extraordinary precision, using surgical procedures to redirect saliva ducts through the cheek so he could measure drops. He called the original response unconditioned. The learned response: conditioned. The implications went everywhere psychology had yet to go. He received the Nobel Prize in 1904, for the digestion work. The conditioning work made him more famous.
September 26, 1849
177 years ago
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