history psychology

Running head : IVAN PAVLOV

Ivan Pavlov

[Name of author]

[Institutional information]

Abandoning his earlier religious inclinations , Ivan Petrovich Pavlov decided to devote the rest of his life with science . Influenced in no small way by D . I . Pisarev and I . M . Sechenov , both scientific giants with their progressive ideas during their time , Pavlov pursued the path of physiology all the more , passionately absorbed in the discipline that as early as his student years he was already able to come about crucial findings with significant contributions to the more specific study

of the pancreatic nerves . But more importantly , one of the main contributions of Pavlov to science is his study on the Cerebral Hemisphere which is in direct correlation to what later came to be known as conditional reflex

Pavlov 's concept of conditional reflex is the result of his experiment with his canine . But before he became determined to study the conditional reflexes of the dog in his experiment , Pavlov was first studying the gastric function of dogs in general , and one way in which he was able to measure the amount of saliva from dogs is by attaching a device in the canine 's mouth which collects the amount of saliva generated . Pavlov noticed that the initial response of the dog was to salivate even before the food was delivered to its mouth . This eventually led him to investigate even further , refocusing now his study on the responses of the dog on the presence and absence of the food and other stimulus-inducing factors

The event where he then shifted his attention to the responses of the dog instead of the chemical composition of the canine 's saliva paved the way for his finding of which he is highly regarded of . Pavlov 's `conditional reflexes ' thus came into circulation in the scientific communities first in Russia and then later in the western scientific communities after his book was translated in the early twentieth century

Ivan Pavlov is generally acknowledged as the pathfinder in the domain of nervous physiology as well as animal behavior now categorized under the label conditioned reflexes ' For the most part , conditioned reflexes are the reactions or mechanisms of behavior which are developed right after birth as a consequence of the experiences and learning of the individual . It can also be the result of specific developmental stages of the organism as separate or different from the less complex and less variable reflexes juxtaposed in the structural relations of the organism which are already perfected right at birth

In his first lecture in the Lectures on the Work of the Cerebral Hemisphere ' Pavlov appears to propose that the cerebral hemisphere truly does significant physiological work , be it the cerebral hemisphere of man or that of a canine . The point Pavlov is trying to argue before anything else is that there is hardly any contention behind the voluminous work done by the cerebral hemisphere , and that much work too , is needed in to have a thorough understanding of...