IVAN PAVLOV: BIOGRAPHY, EXPERIMENTS, CLASSICAL CONDITIONING - PSYCHOLOGY - 2025

Ivan Pavlov (1849 - 1936) was a Russian physiologist and scientist who stood out mainly due to his works on classical dog conditioning, which would later serve as the basis for developing disciplines such as behaviorism and modern psychology.

From the earliest years of life, Pavlov showed great curiosity as well as a drive he called "the research instinct." Although he was born into a strongly religious family, his life was influenced by the ideas of thinkers such as IM Sechenov, who were very critical of the ideas of the time and promoted scientific research as a source of truth.

Thus, Pavlov decided to abandon his religious career and start studying natural sciences, for which he went to the University of Saint Petersburg in 1870. There he began to receive classes in physics and mathematics, but soon became interested in more practical subjects such as biology and human and animal behavior.

In 1904 Pavlov received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on classical dog conditioning, thus becoming the first person of Russian nationality to receive this award. His research is among the most important of the 20th century, and has served to develop all kinds of educational and clinical techniques.

Biography

Early years

Ivan Pavlov was born on September 14, 1849 in the city of Ryazan, Russia. He was the son of Peter Pavlov, who served as a local priest and educated him in the Orthodox faith. His first studies were carried out in the local church itself, and later he entered the seminary to also become a priest.

However, Pavlov's religious career did not last long. Moved by the ideas of some progressive critics who had achieved fame in his day, Ivan decided to leave the seminary and dedicate himself to studying physiology and natural sciences. However, as in his time this subject could not be exercised separately, he enrolled in the career of physics and mathematics.

Pavlov quickly became passionate about physiology, which would later assume great importance in his life. During his first year he studied the pancreatic nerves and described their physiology, in a work that was widely acclaimed and awarded an academic award that motivated him to continue researching.

Pavlov got his science degree in 1875, with outstanding grades. Even so, not satisfied with this achievement, he enrolled in the Russian Academy of Medical Surgery to continue learning more about physiology, the subject that interested him most at the time.

After passing a very complex exam and in which there was a lot of competition, Ivan Pavlov obtained a scholarship to study at this center. At the same time, he obtained the position of director of the physiology laboratory at the center that had been created by S. Botkin, one of the most famous doctors of the time. Therefore, from this point on he was able to fully focus on the investigation.

Working life and first investigations

One of Pavlov's first feats in the field of research was to turn the physiology department of the Institute of Experimental Medicine into one of the main centers for the study of this subject worldwide. He joined it in 1890, and continued to hold the same position for 45 years, practically until the time of his death.

In addition to this, in the same year Ivan Pavlov joined the Military Medical Academy, serving as a professor at this academic center. Later, in 1895, he was offered the position of Professor of Physiology at this same institution, a position which he accepted and held until 1925.

It was precisely during this time that Pavlov carried out much of his most important studies on physiology, especially that related to digestive processes. Perhaps his most important discovery in this period was the method of surgically implanting external cannulas that allowed observing the functioning of the organs without having to open the animal's body.

This completely revolutionized the physiology of the time, since until then the only way to observe the organs was to open them once the animal had died. In this way, much data was unknown about the digestion process, and with his innovations Pavlov opened the door to a flood of new data in this regard.

In addition to this, this Russian researcher was one of the first to highlight the importance of the nervous system in regulating digestion, a discovery that is the basis of the most modern studies in physiology.

During the following years Ivan Pavlov was lecturing all over the world on his discoveries, the most famous being the Lectures on the Function of the Major Digestive Glands (1897).

Discovery of classical conditioning

Pavlov's studies in the field of digestive system physiology resulted in the creation of research on innate and conditioned reflexes.

While studying the automatic regulation of the functioning of the glands in charge of digestion, this researcher noticed "psychic secretion", which has to do with stimuli that are not directly present.

Pavlov and dog

To study this phenomenon, Pavlov inserted cannulae into the salivary glands of a number of dogs, and began to investigate conditioned stimuli. Based on Sechenov's hypothesis, he found that a large part of the salivation reflex has to do with stimuli that are not natural.

From this phenomenon Pavlov developed his theory of classical conditioning, which had a great influence in the field of psychology by allowing the study of behavioral phenomena objectively instead of with the subjectivity that characterized the discipline until then.

Dissemination of his theory

Pavlov presented his theory on classical conditioning in Madrid, at the International Medical Congress held in the city in 1903. In it, he spoke for the first time about his discoveries about conditioned reflexes in animals, and defended the idea that it was necessary take them into account as one of the basic phenomena on a mental and physical level.

From this theory the idea was extracted that classical conditioning is one of the most sophisticated forms of learning, exclusive of advanced animals and in human beings. In addition, it also opened the door to the objective study of different mental phenomena, something that had not been achieved until now.

After this, Ivan Pavlov tried to create a general theory on conditioned reflexes from the non-experimental ideas of Sechenov, one of his predecessors. This was based on three basic principles: that of determinism, that of structure, and that of analysis and synthesis. These three laws supposedly direct the activity of complex living things.

This theory formed the basis of many more advanced ones that emerged in the decades that followed, greatly influencing fields such as medicine or behavioral psychology. Today, they are still largely in effect.

Support and recognition

Even during the first years of his studies, the name of Ivan Pavlov began to be known throughout the world. In addition to receiving the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1904, probably the most important award of his career, in 1901 he joined the Russian Academy of Sciences, becoming an academic at the same institution in 1907.

In 1912 he obtained an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge, an honorary degree only intended for the best scientists of the time. From this moment, several international institutions began to recognize his merit, the culminating moment being the year 1915, in which he obtained the Order of the Legion of Honor.

Despite not being overly sympathetic to the communist regime in his country after the October Revolution, Lenin recognized him in 1921 as a fundamental person for Russia and highlighted the scientific services that Pavlov had rendered to his homeland.

In fact, both Lenin and his successors tried to get Ivan Pavlov and his assistants to continue improving Russian science, in such a way that the Soviet Union ended up becoming one of the world leaders in fields such as physiology or psychology.

Pavlov, who was not too happy with the regime in his country, nevertheless continued to advance in his studies and tried to do his bit for the welfare of the nation. He reformed a large number of Soviet scientific institutions, and managed to turn several of them into world referents of knowledge and knowledge.

In addition to this, his work as a trainer was also very important, since many of his students continued their studies and ended up developing the ideas of their teacher to a great extent. Today, his discoveries are still very important and form the foundations of some of the most important scientific disciplines of the moment.

Personal life and death

In 1881, Pavlov married Seraphima Vasilievna Karchevskaya, with whom he lived throughout his life. They had a total of five children, in addition to a first pregnancy in which his wife lost the child for unknown reasons today, despite a large number of theories in this regard.

Of the five children they had, one of them, named Wirchik, died as a child due to illness. Of the rest, three were boys (named Vladimir, Vsevolod, and Victor), and one was a girl, known as Vera. Of all of them, only Vladimir continued his father's scientific work.

Ivan Pavlov died in Leningrad on February 27, 1936, being remembered even today as one of the greatest scientists of all time.

Experiments

Ivan Pavlov conducted numerous neurophysiological experiments on animals over the years after receiving his doctorate from the Academy of Medical Surgery in his country. He was totally convinced that human behavior could be better understood and explained in physiological terms than in mentalistic terms, which was in great contrast to the prevailing ideas of his time.

The experiment for which Pavlov is most remembered, however, was the one in which he used the salivation process of dogs to establish some of his key ideas, especially those related to classical conditioning. This experiment was also the one that got him the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

1-The dog salivates seeing the food. 2-The dog does not salivate at the sound of the bell. 3-The sound of the bell is shown next to the food. 4-After conditioning, the dog salivates with the sound of the bell.

In this experiment, Pavlov surgically attached a transparent cannula to a series of dogs to study the salivation response of these animals. The researcher found that, when presented with food, the dogs began to produce this substance abundantly.

The next step in the experiment consisted of ringing a bell seconds before the food was presented. Thus, the dogs began to associate the sound of it with their diet, in such a way that there came a time when they began to salivate as soon as they heard it, even if no food was presented to them later.

This experiment showed that the physical response of the dogs, salivation, was directly related to the stimulus of the bell, despite the fact that there was naturally no relationship between the two phenomena. In this way, Pavlov showed the first experimental example of the existence of conditioned stimuli.

The whole process is an excellent example of classical conditioning, and it is mainly related to a physical and spontaneous response to some particular conditions that the organism has acquired through association. Behavioral theory has applied these ideas and those subsequently developed from them to explain much of human behavior.

Classical conditioning

Ivan Pavlov's greatest contribution to psychology and science in general was the discovery of the mechanism of classical conditioning. It is about the ability of some animals and human beings to mentally relate two stimuli that initially have no natural connection, when they are given at the same time.

The phenomenon of classical conditioning is one of the most important learning processes in people. It can occur both spontaneously and in a formal context, and has many applications in fields as different as education or psychological therapy.

For example, an individual may develop an aversion to a particular taste if after taking a food he develops unpleasant symptoms. In this way, every time you try that food again, you will feel a general discomfort, so from that moment on you will tend to avoid it. This would be an example of spontaneous classical conditioning.

On the other hand, this phenomenon can be used in therapy to eliminate phobias and other similar psychological disorders; or in the context of formal education, to encourage the learning of certain concepts and skills.

Personality theory

Ivan Pavlov was also interested in the functioning of the human nervous system. His research included some on the nervous activity that underlies reflexes and unconditioned stimuli. Thus, among other things, Pavlov introduced the concepts of the force of excitation and inhibition, as well as mobility, radiation and generalization in the central nervous system.

The excitation of cells was the most important concept developed by Pavlov in this regard. It is about your ability to do a job, and it can be very short or long and have different intensities. This excitement can lead to the gain of conditioned responses, or to the generalization of a conditioned response.

Inhibition, on the other hand, occurs when a response that is already encoded is overcome or contained. Pavlov observed the balance between arousal and inhibition and determined that there were different types of nervous systems. These observations were made about dogs, but Pavlov believed that they could also be generalized to humans.

The different types of nervous systems were categorized by Pavlov into strong and weak nervous systems with different subtypes under the former.

These different types of systems were classified according to the strength of excitation or inhibition in the observed individual. Pavlov thought that people with weak nervous systems "had limited adaptive abilities," while strong people were more adaptable.

This theory has been compared to Eysenck's research on the physiological origins of introversion and extroversion. Despite having arisen in the first place as a purely theoretical idea, this idea has ended up being applied to different theories of personality.

Other contributions

Despite being remembered mainly for his studies on classical conditioning, the truth is that a large part of Ivan Pavlov's life was dedicated to research on the physiological processes of digestion.

In this field he made many discoveries, gave lectures and published several works that have been of great importance in this area.

In addition to this, Pavlov also laid the foundations for many of the modern educational theories, especially all those that drink from currents such as behaviorism.

Finally, his ideas about the possibility of empirically studying the mental processes of human beings had a great impact on later research within the field of psychology.

References

1. "Ivan Pavlov" in: Britannica. Retrieved on: July 16, 2019 from Britannica: britannica.com.
2. "Ivan Petrovich Pavlov" in: Biography. Retrieved on: July 16, 2019 from Biography: biography.com.
3. "Biography of Ivan Pavlov, Father of Classical Conditioning" in: Thought Co. Retrieved on: July 16, 2019 from Thought Co: thoughtco.com.
4. "Ivan Pavlov" in: The Nobel Prize. Retrieved on: July 16, 2019 from The Nobel Prize: nobelprize.org.
5. "Ivan Pavlolv" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: July 16, 2019 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.