In 1904 he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his pioneering studies of how the digestive system works. This process is called extinction.īut while you might think of dogs when you think of Pavlov, his Nobel Prize was actually for something completely different. An important principle in conditioned learning is that an established conditioned response (salivating in the case of the dogs) decreases in intensity if the conditioned stimulus (bell) is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus (food). So-called Pavlovian training has been used in many fields, with anti-phobia treatment as but one example. His work paved the way for a new, more objective method of studying behavior. Pavlov’s description on how animals (and humans) can be trained to respond in a certain way to a particular stimulus drew tremendous interest from the time he first presented his results.
You might be wondering why making a bunch of dogs drool is so special. He didn’t go for a specific breed, but instead seems to have used all sorts of dogs, many of them mutts. But what kind of dog did he use? Easily trainable German Shepherds? Small, easy-to-handle Chihuahuas? Venerable Dalmations? Turns out, Pavlov wasn’t picky about the kinds of dogs he used. Everybody knows about Pavlov’s dogs-the pooches who taught us about conditioning by being trained to salivate at the sound of the bell.
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