History

Ivan Pavlov was born September 26 1849 in Ryazan Russia. At an early age Pavlov’s parents suggested he read books twice to be better understood.  This practice of reading helped shape intense dedication to his work (Brigham, 2008).  While attending a religious school Pavlov and his brother would sneak of to the local library to read works about scientists and what they were achieving in the field of science.  The brothers along with the rest of Pavlov’s brothers and sisters went to the local religious school because their father was the priest of the parish (Johnson, 2008).  In 1870 while studying at the seminary in Ryazan the Russian government made a decree that divinity students could attend nonsectarian universities (Anonymous, 1998).  The ruling affected Pavlov because he could go to school where he wanted and study physiology.  He learned about physiology in the books at the library that he and his brother would go read.  After the ruling Pavlov left the seminary to attend the university of Saint Petersburg in Leningrad to major in physiology and a chemistry minor (Anonymous, 1998).  Upon graduating he went to the Military Medical Academy as a laboratory assistant.  After his formal schooling he won the Wylie fellowship and studied in Germany for two years (Brigham, 2008).  Five years after leaving the Military Academy he returned by accepting to be the head of the physiological department.  This is where he did the majority of his work which culminated in a Nobel Prize in 1904.  When Pavlov started out in physiology he was focused on digestions of animals but by the end was working on learning about the nervous system.  Towards the end of his tenure at the Military-Medical academy the Russian Revolution of 1917 was bringing about the soviet communist system. In 1921 Pavlov received a special dispensation because of his scientific contributions along with continuing his work.  The system went against what Pavlov believed so he resigned as head of the physiology department at the Military-Medical Academy.  In 1935 he became very ill but became well enough to attend some events like the neurological congress of London.  On February 27 1936 Ivan Pavlov passed away in Leningrad Soviet Union.

 

Pavlov’s Experiments

Pavlov’s first stage (1874-1888) of his work was developing surgical operations that would create the least amount of pain without anesthesia on dogs (Anonymous, 1998).  At one point he was considered one of the best with a surgical knife in all of Europe.  The circulatory system is what Pavlov studied, specifically the oscillations of the blood pressure under various conditions.  He found that the dog’s blood pressure did not vary in the case of being fed dry food or meat broth (Anonymous, 1998.).  His theory about the heart being controlled by four specific nerve fibers which is now accepted as standard thought.  The vagus and sympathetic nerves produce the same effects on the heart.

The second stage of Pavlov’s work (1888-1902) dealt with nerves above the digestive glands.  Pavlov and his pupils discovered a lot of accurate data about the gastrointestinal tract (Anonymous, 1998).  His work on digestion is what he received a Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine in 1904.  This stage is where he learned about conditioned responses, by using a bell or tuning fork he could get the dogs to salivate the same if the food was given or if the food was not given to the dog. 

The final stage of Pavlov’s work (1902-1936) dealt with ascertaining the functions of the cerebral cortex.  He used his finding from before on conditional reflexes to inform him about the cerebral cortex.  At the time he was looking into conditioned and unconditioned reflexes, the process of how the brain thinks was considered psychic phenomena.  Pavlov observed that Conditioned Reflexes were learned and unconditioned reflex was an inherited reflex.  Pavlov decide to take the route of psychic phenomena or Physiological methods which led him to use the methods of Ivan Sechenov.  Ivan considered that in theory the Psychic phenomena was essentially reflexes which are subject to physiological analysis (Anonymous, 1998).   Unlike Pavlov’s previous study of conditioned reflexes he ran into issues with experimentally proving his theory that conditioned responses are due to temporarily neuronal connections in the cortex (Anonymous, 1998.). 

He wrote his last article in 1934 for The Great Medical Encyclopedia about “Conditioned Reflexes”.  He mentioned his theory on two signaling systems which gave the difference between human and animal nervous systems (Anonymous, 1998).   The first system in both humans and animals involves receiving stimulations from the external world.  The second systems is only in humans is where the stimulation happens through words, thoughts and abstractions. 

Pavlov discovered that conditioned response were subject to change according to multiple kinds of influences.  He also discovered the fact that conditioned responses can be forgotten if the response is not reinforced.  He learned that another response can take the place of the previous response if it is not reinforced.

 

Impact on Education

Pavlov’s started the building blocks for the theory of behaviorism in learning.  Many Theorist such as Skinner and Watson used Pavlov’s conditional reflexes to shape their own theories in behaviorism in education.  During formal education students are conditioned on how to behave in class.  For example a bell signs that class is over and when the next bell rings class begins.  Certain techniques are used and told to make sure that the student behaves in the proper manner in certain situations.  One of the conditioned response is when the teacher may write information on the board.  It is understood when you get into higher grades the information is important and you should write it down and study.  Pavlov’s work had a huge effect on how humans perceive themselves and their behavior along with learning (Nesbitt, 2008).  A good way to explain Pavlov’s effect on education would be classroom management.   This is meant by how the kids behave, what topics are the kids motivated by to learn and how they react to new information.

 

Original Article

Pavlov wrote a book about psychopathology and psychiatry of animals.  He proceeds to go through and talk about the dogs involved in the experiments.  He goes through and explains his experiment on the physiological level and how information should play out.  It is mentioned that other scientists have started a different versions of conditioned reflexes.  But Pavlov felt he needed take the topic further to fully understand how it relates to the brain.  The book goes further into the train of thought when it comes to the dogs involved in the experiment.   Towards the end of the book the lab assistants had trouble with the dogs falling asleep and they did not know how to deal with this issue during the experiment.  Pavlov proceed to mention that it was suggested to lower the temperature so the dogs would be too cold to fall asleep.   He also puts charts in the book showing the results to some of the experiments.  The book is very descriptive about what pupils did and how the dogs reacted and how the pupils countered the dog’s reactions.  The book goes over different results of how the dogs were tested and if they salivated.

 

Conclusion

One of the most interesting things that I learned about Pavlov’s conditional reflexes experiment was that at one point he attempted to use simple melodies to elicit a reaction.  The dogs actually reacted to the simple melody as a reaction for the food.  There is a bell that is always mentioned when explaining this experiment in books.  One book explains how Pavlov hardly ever used a bell on his dogs during the experiment (Johnson, 2008).  He used a buzzer, tuning fork, metronome and occasionally a bell.  When Pavlov left the Military-Medical Institute his pupils gave him an album of all the dogs that they had used in their experiments.  As he liked animals and saw the use of dogs as a search for the truth and have the animals be fully healed before consideration of using them in his experiments.  The experiments were protested but his repeated justification was that it was the only way to get answers they need.  In 1935 there was an ornate fountain that was built on the institute grounds and on the top is a sculpture of a dog.  On the side beneath were the water comes out there are eight different types of sculpted heads of the dogs that were used in the experiments.  Beneath the dogs heads there are many Pavlovian quotes on the fountain and the fountain itself is a tribute to Pavlov and his dogs.  When doing research on Ivan Petrovich Pavlov I was not aware of how deep his experiments went in to conditional reflexes.  I thought that it involved dogs and they salivated but he went into the study of nerves and the role they play in the body.  I was not aware of the effect that conditional reflexes have on learning and education.  I thought that there was not a connection to behaviorism but to find out that he pretty much pioneered the way for other theorists to come with the theories that they are known.        

 

References:

           

Anonymous. (1998). “Ivan Petrovich Pavlov”: Encyclopedia of world Biography. Detroit: Gale group.

 

Brigham, ED. (2008). “. Narins. Detroit: Gale group.

 

Johnson, G. (2008).Ivan Pavlov: Measuring the Immeasurable. (pp126-136), New York: Random House, Inc.

 

Nesbitt, C.(2013). . Retrieved from: https://christophernesbitt.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/how-the-work-of-pavlov-influenced-education/

 

Pavlov, I. (1961). Moscow: Foreign languages Pub.