Ivan Pavlov a Russian physiologist opened the doors to the first experimental model of learning, classical conditioning. Pavlov was born on September 14, 1849, at Ryazan, Russia. Ivan Pavlov was born into a poor family, with very religious beliefs. Because of his families beliefs Ivan Pavlov early studies were focused on theology. Ivan Pavlov eventually changed his views, abandoning his religious career and decided to devote his life to science because he was inspired by the progressive ideas which D. I. Pisarevand and I. M. Sechenov were spreading. In his early life Ivan Pavlov had an accident, it impede him to attend regular school until the age of 11. Ivan Pavlov attended and graduated from the Ryazan Church School before entering the local theological seminary. In 1870, Ivan Pavlov left the seminary to attend the university at St. Petersburg where he enrolled in the physics and math department and took natural science courses. Ivan Pavlov’s first research project on the physiology of the nerves of the pancreas won him a prestigious university award. In 1875, Ivan Pavlov completed his course and received the degree of Candidate of Natural Sciences because of his outstanding record. Ivan Pavlov decided to continue his studies because of interest in physiology and proceeded to the Academy of Medical Surgery.
Ivan Pavlov returned to Germany after completing his doctorate, he studied in Leipzig in the Heidenhain laboratories in Breslau. Ivan Pavlov remained in the laboratories of Breslau from 1884 to 1886. At the time, the Heidenhain laboratories were studying digestion in dogs, using an exteriorized section of the stomach. However, Ivan Pavlov perfected the technique by overcoming the problem of maintaining the external nerve supply. In 1891 Ivan Pavlov was invited to the Institute of Experimental Medicine to organize and direct the Department of Physiology. Under his direction it became one of the most important centers of physiological research. Ivan Pavlov headed the physiology department at the Academy continuously for three decades. While at the Institute of Experimental Medicine he carried out his classical experiments on the digestive glands.
Ivan Pavlov’s classical experiment consisted on dogs salivating before food was given to them. Ivan Pavlov noticed that the dogs tended to salivate before food was actually delivered to their mouths. Pavlov was interested in observing their long-term physiological processes. This required keeping them alive and healthy in order to conduct experiments, as he called them. These were experiments over time, designed to understand the normal functions of animals.
The concept for which Ivan Pavlov is famous is the conditioned reflex, he developed in 1901. He had come to learn this concept of conditioned reflex when examining the rates of salivations among dogs. Pavlov had learned then when a buzzer or metronome was sounded in subsequent time with food being presented to the dog in consecutive sequences, the dog will initially salivate when the food is presented. The dog will later come to associate the sound with the presentation of the food and salivate upon the presentation of that stimulus. It is popularly believed that Pavlov always signaled the occurrence of food by ringing a bell. However, his writings record the use of a wide variety of stimuli, including electric shocks, whistles, metronomes, tuning forks, and a range of visual stimuli, in addition to the ring of a bell.
Dr. Ivan Pavlov died in Leningrad on February 27, 1936. Ivan Pavlov asked one of his students to sit beside his bed and to record the circumstances of his dying. He wanted to create unique evidence of subjective experiences of this terminal phase of life Pavlov died of double pneumonia at the age of 86. Ivan Pavlov established the basis for conditioned reflexes and the field of classical conditioning. . Pavlov's research and legacy on conditional reflexes greatly influenced not only science, but also popular culture.