Pavlov & Me

Pavlov’s studies on digestion inspired him to study the hows and whys of learning and our capacity to do so. He studied dogs’ reactions to food and then tried to control their responses and reactions to food to understand the learning process. He discovered that an unconditioned stimulus (food in the mouth) caused an unconditioned response (salivation). This happened automatically without the dogs’ thought or consent. He then experimented by using a sound rather than food (something totally unassociated with food) or a conditioned stimulus to produce the salivation response. Because a sound isn’t, in a dogs’ mind, normally connected to receiving food, yet it still triggered the salivation response, the salivating in response to the tone was a conditioned response. My husband reacts in much the same way when I’m cooking. When the smoke alarm goes off, he knows dinner’s ready.

Acquisition, also called initial learning, proves the “stimulus-response” relationship. If Pavlov, discovered, the food was received before the food was given, the dog wouldn’t learn to associate the sound with receiving the food. The timing was also studied to find out how long the dog would be able to associate the food with the tone. Acquisition helps us learn preparation. For instance, if the smoke alarm went off after dinner, instead of before, my husband might mistakenly think I was a good cook.

Pavlov noticed that dogs generalize sounds as well – they might respond the same way to a similar tone as the one he normally used before presenting food. My husband, too, will generalize – sometimes thinking I must be cooking something when he hears fire sirens approaching. He doesn’t, of course, associate the oven timer with food because I usually forget to set the timer.

Pavlov found that extinction occurred if he kept repeating the tone the dogs had come to associate with food while neglecting to provide any food after the tone. The dogs, more and more, “forgot” to associate the tone with food. This happens at my house too, but in reverse. My husband started doing the cooking, and thus the smoke alarm rarely went off so he learned that its high pitched wail didn’t necessarily signal the food was cooked. Pavlov also discovered that extinction didn’t eliminate the conditioned response when he sounded the tone a few hours later, though. The dogs, once again, associated the tone with food, making a spontaneous recovery of what they had previously learned. And, if I do, by some remote chance, during an unforeseen emergency situation, cook something, my husband will either begin listening for the smoke alarm or remove the batteries in anticipation of dinner.