Video: Pavlovs dogs

Pavlov's Experiment on Salivation

Aim of the Experiment

• Objective: To discover the cause of saliva flow in dogs.

• Method: Rerouted saliva ducts to the outside of dogs' cheeks to collect saliva for measurement.

Initial Findings

• Hypothesis: Saliva production might be a fixed nervous reflex, akin to a knee-jerk response.

• Discovery: Dogs autonomously drooled when their tongues touched food, called the salivation reflex.

Complications Encountered

• As dogs grew familiar with the experiment, they began to fill their cheek tubes in anticipation of food before any stimuli occurred, demonstrating they were learning to expect food.

New Technique Introduced

• To mitigate predictability, Pavlov created screens to prevent dogs from seeing the food.

• Introduced an unrelated stimulus: a ticking metronome before presenting food.

Results of New Technique

• Initial Response: Dogs only dripped saliva when food was presented.

• After multiple trials: Dogs started to associate the ticking sound with food, leading to drooling at just the sound of the metronome.

• Development: Dogs salivated equally to the ticking as they did to the actual food presentation.

• This phenomenon was classified as a conditioned reflex.

Conclusion

• Pavlov's insights: Dogs could be conditioned to respond to various stimuli by associating them with food.

• Broader Implication: Suggested that animals, including those in the wild, learn through conditioning.