The Effect of Conditioned Stimulus (Light Intensity) on Movement Ratio

* Ivan Pavlov (behaviorist) – Started the idea of conditioning, where an inherited reflex comes to be triggered by a stimulus that has nothing to do with that reflex. He showed that even inherited reflexes could be influenced dramatically by learning experiences.

Ivan Pavlov, a physiologist, wanted to find why human bodies react to certain stimuli the way it does. For Pavlov’s experiment he got his assistants to introduce food and nonfood objects to a dog to measure the rate of salvation. Different foods would cause the dog to salivate more. For instance the dog would salivate more when it received dry food than when it received wet food. Pavlov called this a reflex and concluded that happens automatically. Pavlov found two kinds of reflexes must exist and one of these reflexes was an unconditional reflex which is an automatic reflex that is not learned. The other reflex is conditional reflex which is learned or acquired during experience. Pavlov wanted to see how the conditional reflex was actually

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov made several great discoveries. He discovered many things about classical conditioning, conditioned reflex, subconscious, and a dog’s digestive tract. He won a Nobel Prize Award in 1904, in recognition of his work on the physiology of digestion, through which knowledge on crucial knowledge of the subject has been transformed and expanded (Davis, para. 1)

There are two groups of reflexes in the human body, with two ways to categorize each of them. Reflexes can either be inborn and connected through the nervous system, or they can be learned through practice. Another way to explain a reflexive category would be autonomic reflexes or somatic reflexes. Autonomic reflexes are those which are unaware to us and act on visceral organs of the body, whereas somatic reflexes involve skeletal muscle stimulation. Both types of reflexes are put into effect via the nervous system. (1)

Pavlov started out his experiment from his firm belief that there are certain actions a dog does not need to learn to perform. He described the phenomenon in which dogs salivate as soon as they see food as a reflex that is “hard wired” into the dogs. He called this naturally occurring response the unconditioned response because there was a clear connection between a certain stimulus and a response in the behavior of the dogs that did not require learning. Similarly, Pavlov called the food the unconditioned stimulus because it naturally and automatically triggered a response, like salivating. In short, he succeeded in proving that any object or event which the dogs learn to associate with food would more likely to trigger the same response -- he discovered the general principle of the classical conditioning.

Classical conditioning was stumbled upon by a Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov. His unexpected discovery led him to win a rightfully earned Noble Prize. Classical conditioning is defined as “a form of learning in which reflex responses are associated with new stimuli (Coon & Mitterer, 2016, p. 201).” This form of learning is also called Pavlovian conditioning or respondent conditioning. He found a connection between the stimuli for his dogs’ salivation during his experiment. To begin explaining classical conditioning, it is best to explain how Pavlov conducted his research. He began his experiment by ringing a bell, which was a neutral stimulus (NS) for his dogs. A neutral stimulus is defined as “a stimulus that does not evoke a response (Coon & Mitterer, 2016, p. 201).” Directly after, he put meat

In Pavlov’s classical experiment, the dogs were experimentally conditioned to associate a ringing bell with food by the presentation of these events at the same time. As a result, after this response had been experimentally conditioned, a ringing bell, alone, was sufficient to induce the dogs to salivate in anticipation of food.

He was born in 1849 in Ryazan, Russian Empire. He graduated and received a degree of Candidate of Natural Sciences from the University of St. Petersburg. Pavlov was interested in how digestion worked in animals. Thus, began to observe and record information on what triggered his dogs to salivate. His research led to the understanding that animals salivate because they use saliva to help them break down the food. Therefore, when food was presented the dogs would drool. However, he made an even deeper discovery, Pavlov noticed that his assistants wore long coats. Every time an assistant would be in the lab even if they did not have food the dogs would salivate. (Pavlov, 1927) Pavlov could not understand why dogs would drool at ordinary lab coats. He decided to run an experiment in which he would ring a bell each time he fed the dogs. After a period of time he would just ring the bell and his dogs would immediately salivate. This experiment is what helped develop his theory of classical conditioning a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired, a response that is at first caused by the second stimulus is eventually produced by the first stimulus alone. Pavlov explained classical conditioning; there is a neutral stimulus (bell) by itself, it will not produce a response, like salivation. There is another stimulus (food), which produces an unconditioned response

Ivan Pavlov, a physician, preformed many experiments concerning the physiology of digestion, by accident he discovered what is now known as classical conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning (Wood, Wood, and Boyd 137). Classical conditioning is “a type of learning through which an organism learns to associate one stimulus with another” (Wood, Wood, and Boyd 137). Learning implies that there is at least a semi-permanent change, this change could be demonstrated through behavior for example. In classical conditioning two stimuli are paired together multiple times. A stimulus is “any event or object in the environment to which an organism responds” (Wood, Wood, and Boyd 137). Pavlov, the father of classical conditioning, found that dogs’ natural response to food is salivation. Therefore, whenever the dogs were presented with food they salivated. Salivation is an unlearned behavior, this is referred to as the unconditioned response. He observed that a large portion of the dogs would begin salivating before the food was even presented. For example, the dogs would begin to salivate when they saw the attendant, whom was responsible for feeding them or when they heard the sound of their feeding dishes rattling (Wood, Wood, and Boyd 137). The dogs associated the cues of the attendant and the rattling of the bowls with the unconditioned stimulus, food. An unconditioned stimulus is “a stimulus that elicits a specific unconditioned response without prior learning” (Wood, Wood, and Boyd

Dr. Ivan Pavlov studied the digestive system in dogs and saw that salivation was a natural reflex when you place food inside a dog’s mouth to help with digestion of the food. Pavlov studied what he called “classical conditioning” by using a Metronome as a neutral stimulus. The way he conditioned his dogs was by combining the metronome as the neutral stimulus and dog food as the unconditioned stimulus. By putting these two stimulants together Pavlov executed the “canine classic experiment.” This experiment worked by showing the dog the relationship between the ticking of the metronome and the food. After repeating the process multiple times, the neutral stimulus (metronome) soon became conditioned. Every time the dog heard ticking from the metronome he would start to salivate even if there was no dog food present. Dr. Pavlov noticed that if he tried to extend the time between the neutral and unconditioned stimulus for more than 5 seconds the dog would not be stimulated whatsoever. (Pavlov,1926) (p.168) The experiment done by Dr. Pavlov is a good example that shows how behavior is taught and can be changed if the right stimulus is applied. If I ever get a dog I will try this experiment myself. I will combine a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to train my dog. He will pick up good behavior and after a while I will remove what will eventually become a conditioned

Ivan Pavlov a Russian physiologist who lived from (1927-1960) first observed and conceived the concept of Classical conditioning. The concept of classical conditioning is widely distinguished and understood as the most basic form of cognitive learning. Even before Ivan Pavlov named the process of conditioning, his work was considered ahead of his time (Feeser, 2002, p. 24). In fact, Pavlov was presented a Nobel Prize in Physiology and Nero Medicine for his research on the digestion system of dogs (Feeser, 2002, p. 24). To further his digestion research, Pavlov devised a medical procedure for implanting a tube, called a fistula, into animals that were still alive. This allowed Pavlov to collect digestive secretions, and measure them, such as those secreted in a dog’s stomach or the mouth (Feeser, 2002, p. 24). This was a dramatic first, because before Pavlov 's advancements, almost everything that was understood or known about physiological processes was revealed from studies involving severe (temporary or sacrificed animals) as opposed to operatic preparations (long-term and in living animals). Pavlov was always interested mainly in the understanding of reflexive occurrences when food was placed in the dog’s mouth and as it passed through the other parts of the digestive system, including the stomach (Feeser, 2002, p. 27). For example, Professor Pavlov or one of his many personal assistants would put meat into the mouth of a dog or dogs and then measure the amount of saliva

Classical conditioning, also called respondent conditioning, involves the use of unconditioned stimuli (UCS), conditioned stimuli (CS) and/or neutral stimuli (NS) to achieve unconditioned responses (UCR) and conditioned responses (CR). One of the most famous cases of this was made by a Russian scientist named Ivan Pavlov. During Pavlov’s study of digestive processes in animals, for example, he noticed the dogs in his experiment would salivate when his lab assistants entered the room, whether or not they had food (Burch and Bailey, 1999). In this scenario, the lab assistant was originally a NC (neutral due to producing no response prior to food pairing), the food was the UCS and the salivation was the UCR. By associating the lab assistant (NS) with the food (UCS), the lab assistant became a CS to the dog and the salivating became a CR.

In the 1890’s Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist began a study involving the relationship between an unconditioned stimulus, an unconditioned response, and a conditioned stimulus. The results Pavlov found showed how a neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus once it becomes associated with the unconditioned stimulus (McLeod). In this particular experiment, Pavlov studied how much a dog would salivate as he associated the ringing of a bell with food. It is a dog’s instinct to salivate when it sees food and not something a dog learns to do, making salivating an unconditioned response to seeing food, an unconditioned stimulus. Pavlov first measured the amount his dogs would salivate when food was put in front of them. From that point he would ring a bell whenever he would feed the dogs, introducing

Environmental cues that initiate responses were observed by the Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936). Pavlov made initial observations pertaining to 'classical conditioning'. Pavlov correlated environmental cues and physiological changes as he observed dogs salivating in response to a collection of cues that signaled feeding time. Without the stimulus of food present, there was an observable response to the anticipated stimuli as the dogs salivated in preparation for the emanate arrival of food (3).

Reflex can defined as “an automatic and often inborn response to a stimulus that involves a nerve impulse passing inward from a receptor to a nerve center and thence outward to an effector (as a muscle or gland) without reaching the level of consciousness” (Merriam-Webster) or more simply put-an reaction to an action that our bodies do to return to homeostasis without us having to think about it. Reflexes play an extremely important role in remaining healthy and protecting us from being harmed without having to take the time to think about it. For example, infants have a suck reflex that causes them to start sucking when the roof of their mouths are stimulated; this reflex is obviously important because if infants did not have this reflex, they could die of starvation since they would not be able to draw milk from their mother’s breast (this is actually a problem with premature infants as the suck reflex does not develop until between the 32nd and 36th week of pregnancy) (Stanford Children’s Health). There are two main types of reflexes- the simpler monosynaptic reflexes (or spinal reflexes) that can act without any input from the brain and the more complex superficial reflexes which still requiring some processing from the brain. A reflex consists of five main components, which as a group are called the “reflex arc.” Component one is the sensory receptor, which receives stimulus and then sends an and impulse to the second component, the afferent pathway. The