In the 1890s, Pavlov was investigating the gastric function of dogs by externalizing a salivary gland so he could collect, measure, and analyze the saliva and what response it had to food under different conditions. He noticed that the dogs tended to salivate before food was actually delivered to their mouths, and set out to investigate this "psychic secretion", as he called it. Pavlov performed and directed experiments on digestion, eventually publishing The work of the digestive glands in 1897, after 12 years of research. His experiments earned him the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.[2]
As Pavlov's work became known in the West, particularly through the writings of John B. Watson, the idea of "conditioning" as an automatic form of learning became a key concept in the developing specialism of comparative psychology, and the general approach to psychology called behaviourism.
Pavlov's research on conditional reflexes greatly influenced not only science, but also popular culture. The phrase "Pavlov's dog" is often used to describe someone who merely reacts to a situation rather than using critical thinking. Pavlovian conditioning was a major theme in Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel, Brave New World, and also to a large degree in Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.
It is popularly believed that Pavlov always signalled the food by ringing a bell. However, his writings also record the use of many stimuli, including electric shocks, whistles, metronomes, tuning forks, and a range of visual stimuli. Catania did not believe Pavlov ever actually used a bell in his famous experiments.[4] Littman tentatively attributed the popular imagery to Pavlov’s contemporaries Vladimir Bekhterev and John B. Watson,[5] until Thomas found several references that clearly said Pavlov did, indeed, use a bell.[6]
It is less widely known that Pavlov's experiments on the conditional reflex included children, some of whom apparently underwent surgical procedures, similar to the dogs, for the collection of saliva.[7]
