Pavlov simply studied the response system he knew best indeed, he earned the Nobel Prize in 1904 for his work in digestive physiology.Īfter more than a century of scientific study, we now understand that basic associative learning – sometimes called Pavlovian or classical conditioning – is the essential process responsible for our anticipating one event from the occurrence of another: as when the flash of lightning portends the clap of thunder, when the peaceful ending of the symphony’s third movement cues the raucous opening of the fourth movement and when the chime of the doorbell heralds the arrival of the first dinner guest. Rather, he saw the potential for such learning to be part of a broad range of adaptive human actions. Critically, Pavlov did not study salivation in dogs because he believed associative learning to be an inherently primitive process applicable only to mechanical reactions in animals. Pavlov’s great scientific achievement was to objectively and experimentally investigate these laws. Pavlov with three colleagues operating on a dog. British philosophers including John Locke, David Hume and David Hartley had, based on their own keen observations and introspections, outlined basic associative laws by which one event comes to suggest another. When one thing gets linked to anotherĪssociative learning was recognized and appreciated long before Pavlov initiated his pioneering scientific studies. Nothing in these pejorative remarks hints at how associative learning contributes to performing responses that help us survive and thrive. People were reduced to canines and their reactions downgraded to mechanical reflexes. Remember, Pavlov’s own breakthrough was discovering that dogs could learn to associate the dinner bell with the meal itself and so begin to drool when the bell rang in advance of when the feeding bowl was actually placed within reach.īut, these commentators cast such learned associations in a decidedly negative light. Right?”Įach remark contains a profound truth: Extremely strong associations can indeed be formed between events. And, so he is Pavlov and we are all the dogs. “It is such a huge master switch that can throw to watch both sides and the media completely respond to what he wants in the way he wants.