Pavlov Ivan Petrovich
( 1849 – 1936 )
Abstract
Biography
Pavlov and the Theory of
Reflexes
Everyday Classical Conditioning,
The Theory of Reflexes
in Psychology
Further Links
References for
Reading
Abstract
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov ( 1849-1936
), the famous Russian scientist-physiologist, laureate of the Nobel Prize
(1904) in medicine and physiology, had acquired the world-wide fame due to his
investigations in the field of physiology of reflexes, in particular,
conditioned reflexes, as essential constructive elements of adaptive mechanisms
in behaviour of animals and human being. His most famous experiments on study of
classical conditioning became the basis for not only studying the principles of
higher nervous activity of living organism, but also contributed in to
development of early learning theories having had a great consequence in
promotion of learning-behavioural paradigm in psychology.
As Lefrangois (
2000 ) emphasizes, scientific career of such famous psychologist as John Watson
(1878-1958) and Edwin Guthrie (1886-1959) was greatly influenced by Pavlovian
classical conditioning.
Biography
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
(1849-1936) was born in family of poor village priest at Ryazan, in Russia,
on 14th of September, 1849.
His school education was running at the church
school, and thereafter he had been studying at the Ryazan theological seminary.
At the same time Pavlov was keen on modern ideas of Charles Darwin and Russian
physiologist Ivan Sechenov, that led him to leave a career of priest and devote
himself to science. In 1870 he enrolled in the University of St.Petersburg and
in 1875 completed his study with a distinction in the degree of Candidate of
Natural Science.
Then Pavlov proceeded his study in the Academy of Medical
Surgery, and in 1889 he successfully completed that course being awarded with a
gold medal.
In 1890 Pavlov was appointed a director of the Department of
Physiology at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, where he and his
colleagues and students carried out the fundamental research on physiology of
digestive processes in animals.
This great work had fairly led him to the Nobel Prize
in 1904.
In his personal qualities Pavlov was very punctual, organized,
and self-rigorous and demanded the same from his pupils and colleagues. In his
work he was confident and stubborn.
In 1999, in honor of 150-anniversary of
the greatest scientist of Russia, well-known around the world, St.Peterburg
branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences founded the 'Academician Pavlov
Foundation' to support particular distinguished investigations in the field of
medicine, physiology, and other related branches of fundamental science (Academician I.P.
Pavlov Foundation).
Pavlov and the Theory of
Reflexes
Since 1898-1899 Pavlov began to study the classical
conditioning, that took about 30 another years. In general, Pavlov was
interested in study of the role of physiological juices in digestion,
particularly, in interaction between salivation and functioning the stomach in
animals. To put his study into effect, he created and developed a number of
special devices and procedures, which allowed him to pick and measure the
salivation in those dogs he used in his experiments (Loginov, 1983)
Once
Pavlov's assistants noticed, that the dog began to salivate as ever it saw the
person, who fed it. Further observations did show, that the dog began to
salivate when it not only saw its feeder, but when it could hear his or her
footsteps.
These observations seemed to Pavlov to be very interesting and,
moreover, this phenomenon known as 'psychic secretion' was, in fact, not studied
at all. Pavlov decided to investigate it and try to find some explanation for
'psychic secretion' from the point of view of physiology ( Loginiv, 1983 ).
Destiny of classical conditioning was decided beforehand.
The original classical
conditioning experiment comprised ringing a bell simultaneously with
giving a meat powder to a dog. The meat powder or food was referred to as a
natural innate or unconditioned stimulus ( US), which evoked a
natural or unconditioned response (UR) or unconditioned
reflex in the form of salivation and served for satisfying hunger. UR does
not require to be learned because it is already present in organisms from their
birth. Sound of the bell was referred to as a neutral external or conditioned
stimulus ( CS ), which did not associate with any physiological
function in the dog, and it should be learned. Pavlov called such types of
stimuli 'artificial stimuli'( Loginov, 1983 ). CS evokes a conditioned
response ( CR ) or conditioned reflex.
The purpose of the
experiment was to motivate or condition the dog to react to the bell in the same
way as it reacted to the meat powder only. Pavlov (1897) did show, that if the
bell (CS) was simultaneously presented with the meat powder (US) for a number of
times, then the CS would undoubtedly lead to the CR , which was originally
initiated by food only, so that over some time of learning the new condition the
dog would be able to salivate in response to only the CS.
Pavlov was the
first scientist who conceptualized and introduced the theory of higher
nervous activity of living organisms appeared to be logical consequence of
the classical conditioning. Experiments carried out by Pavlov (1905) and his
pupils showed, that conditioned reflexes, as a new reflexive formation,
originated in the cerebral
cortex, and that any external agent or stimulus from a natural environment
could become a CS, if it was synchronized on time with an US ( Loginov, 1983 ).
Pavlov (1905) claimed, that the most complex patterns and reactions , and
the most perfect adaptive mechanisms of human being and higher animals were
founded and proceeded on the basis of conditioned reflexes ( Loginov, 1983
).
The higher nervous activity, by Pavlov, is integrated, conditioned and
unconditioned reflexive function of the cerebral cortex and its subcortex
structures, that provides living organisms with their unique behaviour (
Loginiv, 1983 ).
Having used the method of inducing conditioned reflexes,
Pavlov ( beginning of 1900s) suggested and detailed the theory of
localization of functions in the cerebral cortex, the essence of
which is that the cerebral cortex is subdivided into functionally acting
segments, each of which is responsible for analyzing and regulating the
particular function of living organism, and they ( segments ) are not isolated
in their functions, but, in the contrary, associate with each other in
appropriate way. In fact, the classical
conditioning was that blessed predisposition , on which the entire theory of
reflexes had been built ( Loginov, 1983 ). Three central principles of the
theory of reflexes express the basis, on which living organisms learn
to behave themselves in surrounding them environment :
the principle of
determinism;
the principle of analysis and synthesis;
the principle of
structure ( Nobel
Foundation, 2001)
' The more perfect the nervous system of living
organism, the more centrolizeable is it, then the higher part of it is, in more
and more extent, the organizer and distributor of all activity of the organism'
( Pavlov cited in Loginov, 1983 ).
Everyday Classical
Conditioning
In fact, the gist of classical
conditioning is to learn new reflexes, which, in their turn, could have
served as new forms of behaviour at an everyday activity.
Who have pets,
those know, that as ever they begin to open a can with a pet's food, their pets
are just running up against them for getting some food, because the pets
associate getting food with the sound of the opener.
If somebody touched a
hot stove and got a burn, then he or she would never do that again, because
touching the hot stove was associated with pain.
As psychologists assert,
stronger application of classical conditioning may be
viewed in emotions, for a example, association of fears, phobias in people
with terrifying events or situations. If some music was associated with some
strong enough nice or, vice versa, terrible event, then hearing the same music,
even in other place, would elicit memorials about that event.
Common
shopping may be referred to as a result of classical conditioning, where money
is a conditioned stimulus by means of which it becomes possible to obtain some
food, clothes, things necessary for living, and so on.
Thus, people observe
and use the classical conditioning and its derivatives in their everyday
life.
The Theory of Reflexes in Psychology
In spite of
the fact, that Pavlov did not recognize himself and his investigations to be
participating in promotion of psychology as a science, his ideas and theories
played a really crucial role in early development of learning or behavioural
paradigm in psychology. John Watson (1878-1958),
the founder of bihavioural (learning) paradigm in psychology, and his upholder
Edwin Guthrie (1886-1959)
considered Pavlovian classical
conditioning as an initial and important process in human behaviour, by
means of which many forms of human behaviour and its deviations could have been
explained.
On the basis of the theory of reflexes and classical conditioning,
in particular, Pavlov(1903) conducted a number of studies of experimental
neuroses in animals with intention to determine the nature of some forms of
neuroses, psychic disorders, hypnosis in human (Loginov, 1983). In 1903 he
introduced the results of these studies in his work 'Experimental Psychology and
Psychopathology in animals'. He showed, that conditioned reflexes having been
the functional structures of physiological processes in living organism, at the
same time, could be regarded as an elementary psychological units. In fact,
accepting this conception gave opportunity to interpret many forms of behaviour
both in human and animals from the objective point of view (Loginov,
1983).
Contemporary psychology finds Pavlovian study and explanation of some
forms of psychic neuroses, schizophrenia, and paranoia to be too limited and
unduly tied to physiological processes in organism. According to review of Pavlovian classical
conditioning by Kentridge (1995), Pavlov strongly believed that all
psychological phenomena should be explained and described in objective
physiological terms, that is why all outcomes of his studies were built on the
principles of the objective materialism.
The classical conditioning is not
only the method for learning new forms of behaviour, animals and human,
definitely, have their specific methods of learning other than classical
conditioning.
Pavlov did not explain all ways of human learning, but, as
Lefrangois (2000) specifies, an explanation of that was not the goal of Pavlov's
studies , and he was mostly concerned with a study of one or two interesting to
him phenomena in details, having believed that studying more simple phenomena
would eventually lead to progressive investigations of and understanding more
complex processes.
As it was already mentioned, the learning processes
involved in and intended for elaboration of behaviour of living organisms are
based on the principles of Pavlovian theory of reflexes and higher nervous
activity, and even only that had and has a great significance in development of
theoretical and practical psychology.
Further
Links
Biography
Lefrangois, R. (2000).
Theories of human learning. (4th ed.). USA: Thomson
Learning.
The Nobel
Foundation, 2001. The official web site of the Nobel Foundation:
www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1904/pavlov-bio.html
Academician I.P. Pavlov Foundation
Pavlov and the
Theory of Reflexes
Kalat,
J.W. (2001). Biological psychology. (7th ed.). USA: Thomson Learning.
Kentridge, B.
(1995). Comparative psychology. Lectures 2 & 3.
Lefrangois, R.
(2000). Theories of human learning. (4th ed.). USA: Thomson
Learning.
The Nobel
Foundation, 2001. The official web site of the Nobel Foundation:
http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1904/pavlov-bio.html
Everyday
Classical Conditioning
Davison, G.C. & Neale, J.M.
(2001). Abnormal psychology. (8th ed.). USA: John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.
References for reading
Lefrangois, R.
(2000). Theories of human learning. (4th ed.). USA: Thomson
Learning.
Loginov, A.V. (1983). Physiology with bases of human anatomy. Moscow:
Medicine.
( Russian ed.).
175.202 Assignment 2.
Web Page
is created by Vera Rzay, ID 00325007, Massey University, School of Psychology:
http://verarzay.tripod.com/