PTE Reading: Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers

Dr Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1904 for his work on the physiology of digestion, but he is actually better known for his discovery of classical conditioning. He was studying the amount of saliva produced by dogs in response to food when he made his discovery by pure chance. Naturally, and of no surprise to him, the dogs salivated when food was put in front of them, but Pavlov also noticed that the dogs sometimes salivated before the food was even presented. Upon closer observation, he realised that the dogs were responding to signals that consistently predicted mealtime, such as the footsteps of the laboratory assistants. This phenomenon revealed that organisms could learn to associate neutral stimuli with meaningful events. To test this further, Pavlov introduced other signals, such as the ringing of a bell, pairing them repeatedly with the presentation of food. Over time and regardless of the signal used, the dogs began to salivate in response to the signal alone, demonstrating that the association between the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus had been learned. Pavlov’s work laid the foundation for behaviourism and influenced decades of research on learning and behaviour.