As a result, classical conditioning model is sometimes termed as Pavlovian conditioning (Coon & Mitterer, 2015). Through his experiment, Pavlov was able to develop the first experimental model of learning ‘Classical Conditioning’. Thus, upon the completion of the experiment, salvation had become a conditioned response (CR) (Coon & Mitterer, 2015). In addition, when Pavlov’s bell sounded, the dog was learning a new response (salvation). On the other hand, the sound of the bell, which started out as a neutral stimulus (NS) became a conditioned stimulus (CS) after the experiment was repeated several times. Pavlov termed the food as an unconditioned stimulus (US), because it could evoke salvation (which he called unconditioned response), naturally.

Through association, the sound of the bell, which previously did not have any effect on the dogs’ salivation, began to trigger the same response as food. The experiment was repeated several times with the bell being rung whenever food was presented to the dogs (Coon, 2006).Īs conditioning tool place, the dogs started to salivate on hearing the sound of the bell, even if there was no food in sight. In the beginning of the experiment, the bell was a neutral stimulus because the dogs did not respond to it by salivating. Out of curiosity, Pavlov initiated an experiment in which a bell was rung whenever the dogs were being fed. Based on this observation, he suggested that salvation was a learned response because the dogs salivated whenever they saw a lab coat, and as a result, they had associated the white lab coats with food (Coon & Mitterer, 2015). Since the research assistants who fed the dogs wore white lab coats, Pavlov noted that whenever the dogs saw a lab coat, even if there was no meat in sight, they began drooling. Although this could have been an easy study because mammals usually produce saliva to assist them in breaking down food, Pavlov noted that drooling in dogs had a much more effect than he thought (Nevid, 2009). Pavlov started his experiment by studying what triggers dogs to salivate. In his Conditioning experiment, he conducted a comprehensive study on digestion processes in dogs. Ivan Pavlov was a Russian Psychologist particularly interested in studying how digestion takes place in mammals.

Pavlov dog experiment