Best Known For:
- Classical conditioning
- Research on physiology and digestion.
- 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology.
Birth and Death:
- Ivan Pavlov was born September 14, 1849
- Died February 27, 1936
Contributions to Psychology:
Ivan Pavlov's discovery and research on reflexes influenced the growing behaviorist movement, and his work was often cited in John B. Watson's writings. Other researchers utilized Pavlov's work in the study of conditioning as a form of learning. His research also demonstrated techniques of studying reactions to the environment in an objective, scientific method.Select Publications by Ivan Pavlov:
- Pavlov, I. P. (1927). Conditioned reflexes. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
- Pavlov, I.P. Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes : Twenty-Five Years of Objective Study of the Higher Nervous Activity Behavior of Animals.
- Pavlov, I. P. (1994) Psychopathology and Psychiatry.
Biographies of Ivan Pavlov:
- Todes, D.P. (2000) Ivan Pavlov. Oxford University Press.
Career:
Ivan Pavlov's primary interests were the study of physiology and natural sciences. He helped found the Department of Physiology at the Institute of Experimental Medicine and continued to oversee the program for the next 45 years.While researching the digestive function of dogs, Pavlov noted that dogs would salivate before the delivery of food. In a series of well-known experiments, he presented a variety of stimuli before the presentation of food, eventually finding that, after repeated association, a dog would salivate to the presence of a stimulus other than food. He termed this response a conditional reflex. Pavlov also discovered that these reflexes originate in the cerebral cortex of the brain.
Pavlov received considerable acclaim for his work, including a 1901 appointment to the Russian Academy of Sciences and the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology. The Soviet government also offered substantial support for Pavlov's work, and the Soviet Union soon became a well-known center of physiology research.
