Pavlov (1927) Experiment with Salivation in Dogs

Question 1

Background - Was investigating digestive process and functions within the cerebral cortex of the brain where reflexes were thought to occur and

Answer 1

dogs had to be fed before - salivated at footsteps and lab coats

Question 2

What did Pavlov do to establish how the salivation and lab coats were linked?

Answer 2

He limited the direct contact that the dogs had with the experimenter and tried to introduce a neutral stimulus - metronome

Question 3

When did Pavlov present the metronome?

Answer 3

Before the food appeared

Question 4

Pavlov concluded that

Answer 4

environmental stimuli that previously had no relation to a reflex action, through repeated pairings, could trigger a salivation reflex

Question 5

How many times did Pavlov find he had to pair the neutral stimulus and the food?

Answer 5

around 20 times

Question 6

Pavlov found that

Answer 6

the dogs soon associated the ticking from the metronome with the presentation of the food and began to salivate at the ticking alone

Question 7

Results from Pavlov’s experiments are

Answer 7

objective and scientific as Pavlov isolated the dogs therefore controlling the potential effects of any extraneouas variables on the conditioning process

Question 8

Many of the expriments were repeated on multiple occasions where

Answer 8

Pavlov continually found that conditioned stimuli would produce a conditoned response, making it more reliable

Question 9

Pavlov made assumptions about the pathways that existed and were being made in the cerebral cortex, without

Answer 9

being able to study the brain directly, therefore, his conclusions at the time may not have been completely accurate

Question 10

Pavlov made the assumption that human reflexes would be conditioned in the same was as those in a dog so it is hard to

Answer 10

generalise his findings to humans as there are differences between the two. Although, classical conditioning is used to treat alcoholism so could be applied to humans

Question 11

Used an artificial setting so

Answer 11

lacks ecological validity

Question 12

Neutral stimulus?

Answer 12

metronome

Question 13

Food?

Answer 13

Unconditioned stimulus

Question 14

After several pairings the neutral stimulus becomes the

Answer 14

conditioned stimulus

Question 15

The salivation becomes the

Answer 15

conditioned response

Question 16

How did the dogs show generalisation?

Answer 16

They would salivate to the sound of similar sounding objects but would discriminate against dissimilar sounding objects