Pavlov's Classical Conditioning

Overview of the theory of classical conditioning.

2 Sep, 20232 min read

Some theories teach us a lot about learning. In this article, l will explain what is classical conditioning and who is Pavlov. So, let's start with Pavlov.

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a Russian neurologist and physiologist who is famous for his theory which is called classical conditioning. Pavlov who is known as the founder of modern behavioral therapy, managed to reach something meaningful after some experiments. One of the experiments that he did known as Pavlov's Dog experiment is very well-known in the psychological field. But before we check what exactly this experiment is, we should be aware of what is classical conditioning.

Classical Conditioning: "This is a behavioral procedure in which a biologically potent physiological stimulus". So, in classical conditioning behavior is very important. Pavlov explained this theory with an experiment done on dogs. Let's check the details of the experiment.

Pavlov's Dog Experiment: As a scientist, Pavlov was doing some experiments. Once he was researching a dog's digestive process, and he realized something about dogs coincidently. He saw something while his assistant was feeding them, and the dogs began to salivate when they saw the assistant. So, Pavlov was curious if there was a connection between the assistant's presence and the trigger of the dogs. One day he wanted to experiment and he made something to measure the saliva of the dog. First, he served the dog food while there was a sound of a metronome. Then, he repeated that process. Then, he removed all the food he served and played the metronome. But it was surprising that the dog still salivated when it heard the sound. Thus, Pavlov realized that when he heard the sound of food serving, it stimulated the dog and the dog thought that after the sound food would come.

Briefly, this research shows us that we can react the same after we are under specific classical conditioning like the dogs of Pavlov. If you want to learn more about this theory, here is a video about Pavlov's dog experiment.