Pavlov's Dog

"Pavlov’s dog” refers to famous experiments done with dogs by the Russian scientist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Ivan Pavlov. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1904 for this amazing research he did pertaining to the digestive system.

Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell. That is, he would ring a bell, or blow on a whistle, (he used many different stimuli in his experiments) as a signal to his dogs that it was time for food. The animals eventually became conditioned to associate the sound(s) or noises with the food and over time, food was no longer the factor, they would simply salivate at the mere ringing of a bell. The principle was then applied on humans and the scientific world was amazed that dogs (and people) could be trained to respond to an unrelated stimulus.

The phenomenon is referred to in psychological circles as Classical Conditioning, and it is considered to be a learning process that can actually create a subject’s natural response by an unrelated reinforcement. As experiences reinforce ideas and ideas reinforce experiences,, mental associations can be created.

Animals as well as people, have the ability to form mental associations when an event and a stimuli, even if unrelated, occur closely together in space or time. Not only that, both people and animals can be “trained” to exhibit a desired response, simply by repetitious exposure.

Animal trainers use this principle all the time to get the animals to do things on command. Social engineers have methods at their disposal for humans. Whether it be a dog salivating at the ring of a bell, or a human getting hungry at the sight of a giant yellow letter m, scientific study shows us that can be conditioned to respond to a totally unrelated stimulus, just like Pavlov's dogs.