Ivan Pavlov, a Russian psychologist, conducted a famous experiment that would show the mode of learning called classical conditioning. The experiment would measure when saliva secreted from the dog's mouth when it is exposed to different stimuli.
It is a natural reflex that a dog salivates when it has food in its food. To measure the amount of saliva a dog secreted, Pavlov put a tube inside the dog's mouth and took it out regularly to record the volume. In his experiment, every time before feeding the dogs, he would ring a bell and then measure the saliva secreting from the dog's mouth. At first, as expected, the dogs would salivate when they saw the caretaker bringing food. However, gradually over time, the dogs would salivate when the bell was rung instead of when they saw the food. Finally, after a series of repetitions the caretaker rang the bell but did not bring out any food. The dog still salivated, which suggested a relationship between the bell and the saliva secretion that was trained through repetition.
Classical conditioning is not only found in dogs, we also have habits of classical conditioning. So when that cat or dog bit you so long ago you might still have a phobia for cats or dogs. When you puked after eating a certain food too much, you might still dislike it. The smell of homemade food might remind you of your old home when you were a child. Classical conditioning is part of our lives and you've probably realized it before reading about it.
Why else would we be dreaming so much about food in the hour before lunch?
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| Comic by Schootingstarr [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons |
