Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov developed his concept of the ‘conditioned reflex’ through a famous study with dogs, and won a Nobel Prize in 1904, and became the first Russian Nobel laureate.
Conditioned reflex is a response that does not occur naturally, but that may be developed by regular association of some physiologic function with an unrelated outside event, such as ringing of a bell, or flashing of a light.
Soon the physiological function starts whenever the outside event occurs. Pavlov trained dogs to expect food whenever he rang a bell. The dogs eventually produced saliva when they heard the bell ring, without even seeing the food.
He was born on 26th September 1849, in Russia. Pavlov’s principles of classical conditioning have been found to operate across a variety of experimental settings, including educational classrooms.
Starting in 1901, Pavlov was nominated over four successive years for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He did not win, because his previous nominations were not specific to any discovery, but based on a variety of laboratory findings. Pavlov died in Russia on 27th February, 1936.
