Who did experiments with dogs and classical conditioning?
Quick answer
Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936) is famous for experiments with dogs that revealed classical conditioning. He showed that dogs could learn to salivate at a neutral signal, such as a sound, after it had been repeatedly paired with food.
Key facts
- Scientist
- Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
- Born
- 1849, Ryazan, Russia
- Nobel Prize
- 1904, for research on digestion
- Key concept
- Classical conditioning
How classical conditioning works
| Term | In Pavlov’s experiment |
|---|---|
| Unconditioned stimulus | Food |
| Unconditioned response | Salivating at food (natural, unlearned) |
| Neutral stimulus | A sound, such as a metronome or buzzer |
| Conditioned stimulus | The sound, after being paired with food many times |
| Conditioned response | Salivating at the sound alone |
Over time, the dogs learned to expect food when they heard the sound, so their bodies reacted before food appeared.
Did he really use a bell?
Pavlov’s lab used many signals, including metronomes, buzzers, lights and electric shocks. A bell may have been used occasionally, but the popular image of a ringing bell is a simplification.
A happy accident
Pavlov was studying digestion, measuring dogs’ saliva. His assistants noticed the dogs began salivating when they saw the lab workers who usually fed them, even before food arrived. Pavlov realized this was a learned reflex and spent the rest of his career studying it.
Conditioning in everyday life
- Feeling hungry at the sound of a food wrapper
- A pet running to the kitchen when it hears a can opener
- Feeling anxious at a dentist’s drill sound
- Advertising that pairs products with happy music or celebrities
Extinction
If the sound keeps happening without food, the learned response gradually fades. This is called extinction, and it’s one basis for therapies that help people overcome fears; see what claustrophobia is.
Pavlov’s influence
Pavlov’s work shaped behaviorism, a school of psychology led by John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner, who studied operant conditioning: learning from rewards and punishments.
For another key idea in psychology, see who developed the hierarchy of needs.
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