1849 - 1936
Theory of Classical Conditioning
Biography
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born September 14, 1849 in Ryazan. His father was a priest, and Ivan's early education was in the church school and later the theological seminary. At age 21 (1870) he began his studies of physiology and other natural sciences. In 1879 he completed his studies at the Academy of Medical Surgery. Then he earned a fellowship which enabled him to continue his studies and research, and in 1883 he earned is doctoral degree for work on the nerves of the heart. This work demonstrated that there was a reflexive regulation of the activity of the heart and circulation.
In 1890 Pavlov began to organize the Department of Physiology and the Institute of Experimental Medicine. He continued this work for the next 45 years until his death.. In 1903 he presented a paper at the International Medical Congress in Madrid on "The Experimental Psychology and Psychopathology of Animals." Here he defined conditioned reflexes and other reflexes, and demonstrated that the conditioned reflex could be regarded as an elementary psychological and physiological process. Pavlov's work was groundbreaking, and he and his students investigated many aspects of the reflex and other topics. He received many awards, including the 1904 Nobel Prize, and in 1912 an honorary doctorate at Cambridge University. He died in February, 1936.
Theory
Ivan Pavlov, in 1927, began working with learning through "classical conditioning." Initially the dog only salivated when it was eating. Later Pavlov noticed the dog salivated when he carried the food into the room. He become curious as to why this change had taken place. He thought there were both learned and unlearned components to the dog's behavior. He began experimenting with different stimuli, and if he rang a bell immediately before giving food to the dog, eventually the dog would salivate merely in response to the sound of the bell. He generated terminology to describe his observations. An unconditioned stimulus (UCS) such as food, generates and instinctual reflexive, unlearned behavior, such as salivation when eating. The salivation was called an unconditioned response (UCR) because it was not learned. The bell, formerly a neutral sound to the dog, become a conditioned learned stimulus (CLS) and the salivation a conditioned response (CR).
Pavlov also found that the shorter the time between the stimulus and the response, the more quickly a conditioned response could be developed. Ringing the bell immediately before giving food to the dog was more effective than ringing it some longer period of time before feeding. He referred to the time between stimulus and response as contiguity of the stimulus.
Other concepts developed by Pavlov were generalization, discrimination, and extinction.
Pavlov described all learning in terms of classical conditioning. Later researchers disagreed with this position and demonstrated other modes of learning. We now know that we learn in many ways. Classical conditioning fails to acknowledge the active nature of an organism and it's effect on the environment and other organisms in the environment.
The next major step in learning research was by B.F. Skinner, the founder of the notion of Operant Conditioning.
Learning Theory Bibliography
Santrock, 1988
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