What famous experiment did Ivan Pavlov do?

Answer 1

Ivan Pavlov did an experiment with dogs that demonstrated that reflexes can be conditioned and supported the idea of "conditioning". His experiment is often referred to as Pavlov's Dogs. Together with his assistant, Ivan Filippovitch Tolochinov, he started this experiment in 1901.

While studying the digestive system, he focused on the signals that triggered related reactions, such as the secretion of saliva. His test subjects were dogs. He would put food on the dogs tongue and wait for salivation to occur. He noted that upon even visually seeing food, the dogs would salivate from their salivary glands at the back of their oral cavities. Saliva, as you might know is secreted so that whatever you are swallowing can move through your esophagus comfortably. It also contains salivary amylase, a polysaccharide breaking enzyme.

With this in mind, Pavlov was curious as to why, after a while of experimenting, his dogs salivated without even seeing food. What was going on?

He furthered his experiment, trying to see if perhaps his tentative hypothesis was correct. Pavlov's experiment was quite simple. He would ring a bell before showing and serving the dogs food. This pattern continued for a while.

Afterwards, he simply rang the bell. Even without the food present, the dogs salivated.

After the experiment he realized that the dogs were salivating in the very beginning because of the lab coats - every time they were fed, their food was brought by someone in a lab coat.

This famous experiment proved that animals could be trained or conditioned to expect a result for an action based on previous experiments. This is referred to as Classical or Pavlovian Conditioning.