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Can you make a dog to drool on command?
Well, Pavlov could.
While Ivan Pavlov worked to unveil the secrets of the digestive
system, he also studied what signals triggered related phenomena,
such as the secretion of saliva. When a dog encounters food,
saliva starts to pour from the salivary glands located in
the back of its oral cavity. Pavlov became interested in studying
reflexes when he saw that the dogs drooled without the proper
stimulus. Although no food was in sight, their saliva still
dribbled. It turned out that the dogs were reacting to lab
coats. Every time the dogs were served food, the person who
served the food was wearing a lab coat. Therefore, the dogs
reacted as if food was on its way whenever they saw a lab
coat.
In a series of experiments, Pavlov then tried to figure out
how these phenomena were linked. For example, he struck a
bell when the dogs were fed. If the bell was sounded in close
association with their meal, the dogs learnt to associate
the sound of the bell with food. After a while, at the mere
sound of the bell, they responded by drooling.
See the
Nobel Foundation Demo
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