Ivan Pavlov Essay

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Ivan Pavlov. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born on September 14, 1849 in the village of Ryazan, Russia. He was educated first at the church school in Ryazan and then at the theological seminary there. Inspired by the ideas which D. I. Pisarev, the most eminent of the Russian literary critics of the 1860's and I. M. Sechenov, the father of Russian physiology, Pavlov left his religious career and decided to expend his life to science. In 1870 he entered in the physics and mathematics faculty to take the course in natural science. Pavlov became passionately absorbed with physiology, which in fact was to remain of such most importance to him in his life. It was during this first course that he produced, in collaboration with another student, Afanasyev, his first learned treatise, a work on the physiology of the pancreatic nerves. This work was acclaimed and he was rewarded a gold medal for it. His biggest work to the world of psychology is classical conditioning, a theory about how behavior is learned. He received a Nobel price for his important and fundamental contribution to science. Pavlov was a behaviorist. This means that his theories focused on observable behavior, because behavior can be measured and thought can not. The human mind should be interpreted as a black box that can not be opened. Only what goes in the box and what comes out can be known. Scientific evidences is the keyword in his theory. Pavlov studied reflexes, automatic behavior that is caused by a stimulus from the environment. Some reflexes, such as blinking your eyes when a puff of air comes in it, or the sucking of a baby when something is put in his/her mouth. This automatic behavior can be manipulated. This is called conditioning. Pavlov's classic experiment, in which a dog was trained to salivate at the ringing of a bell, is so well known that cartoonists have frequently used it in

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