Reported by: Ms.

Valerie Pablo, RN

IVAN PAVLOV

Bibliography of Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born on September 14, 1849 in the village of Ryazan, Russia, the son of Peter
Dmitrievich Pavlov, who was the village priest. Like most other children from Ryazan, he went to the
Church school, and was later was enrolled in a theological seminary. It was after reading The Origin of
the Species by Charles Darwin, and the works of Russian physiologist Ivan M. Sechenov that Pavlov
decided to abandon his theological studies and become a man of science. He left the seminary in favor
of the University of St-Petersburg, where he enrolled in the Natural Sciences program.

Pavlov realized his favorite subject was that of physiology, and it wasn't long before he that he
produced, in tandem with a fellow student, his first paper, a work on The Physiology of the Pancreatic
Nerves for which he was awarded a gold medal. Pavlov completed his course and received the degree
of Candidate of Natural Sciences, but not one to rest on his laurels, he went on to study at the Academy
of Medical Surgery where he was awarded another gold medal and later on, a fellowship; in addition to
this, Pavlov was also Director of the Physiological Laboratory at the clinic of S. P. Botkin, a famed Russian
physician. It was there he produced his doctoral thesis on The Centrifugal Nerves of the Heart, for which
he was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine/ physiology (1904).

1890 was an important year for Pavlov, as he was asked to oversee the organization and run the
Department of Physiology at the Institute of Experimental Medicine. It was there he would conduct his
most historically significant research, and also where he would remain for the rest of his life. That same
year, Pavlov was also appointed Professor of Pharmacology at the Military Medical Academy.

Pavlov's main area of research throughout his scientific career was on the digestive process, which
brought on a series of experiments exploring the correlation between the nervous system and the
autonomic functions of the body. Pavlov experimented with dogs, studying the relationship between
salivation and digestion. By applying stimuli to the animals in a variety of ways, using sound, visual, and
tactile stimulation, he was able to make the animals salivate whether they were in the presence of food
or not; a phenomenon he called the conditioned reflex.

Pavlov was also elected a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1901, the Nobel
Prize in 1904, he was elected Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1907, given an
honorary doctorate at Cambridge University in 1912, and awarded the Order of the Legion of Honour in
1915, the recommendation of the Medical Academy of Paris.

Dr. Ivan Pavlov died in Leningrad on February 27,1936.

In addition to the many honors he received during his career, Pavlov should also be credited for the
extraordinary impact his work, and that of his students and followers has had in the field of physiology.
Reported by: Ms. Valerie Pablo, RN

PAVLOV’S CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

Principles of Classical Conditioning

Acquisition

Acquisition is the initial stage of learning when a response is first established and gradually
strengthened. For example, if you are trying to teach a dog to shake in response to a verbal command,
you can say the response has been acquired as soon as the dog shakes in response to only the verbal
command. Once the response has been acquired, you can gradually reinforce the shake response to
make sure the behavior is well learned.

Extinction

Extinction occurs when the occurrences of a conditioned response decrease or disappear. In classical
conditioning, this happens when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned
stimulus. For example, if the smell of food (the unconditioned stimulus) had been paired with the sound
of a whistle (the conditioned stimulus), it would eventually come to evoke the conditioned response of
hunger. However, if the unconditioned stimulus (the smell of food) were no longer paired with the
conditioned stimulus (the whistle), eventually the conditioned response (hunger) would disappear.

Spontaneous Recovery

Spontaneous Recovery is the reappearance of the conditioned response after a rest period or period of
lessened response. If the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are no longer associated,
extinction will occur very rapidly after a spontaneous recovery.

Stimulus Generalization

Stimulus Generalization is the tendency for the conditioned stimulus to evoke similar responses after the
response has been conditioned. For example, if a rat has been conditioned to fear a stuffed white rabbit,
it will exhibit fear of objects similar to the conditioned stimulus.

Discrimination

Discrimination is the ability to differentiate between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have
not been paired with an unconditioned stimulus. For example, if a bell tone were the conditioned
stimulus, discrimination would involve being able to tell the difference between the bell tone and other
similar sounds.
Reported by: Ms. Valerie Pablo, RN

Types of Classical Conditioing

Forward conditioning: Learning is fastest in forward conditioning. During forward conditioning the onset
of the CS precedes the onset of the US. Two common forms of forward conditioning are delay and trace
conditioning.

Delay conditioning: In delay conditioning the CS is presented and is overlapped by the presentation of
the US.

Trace conditioning: During trace conditioning the CS and US do not overlap. Instead, the CS is
presented, a period of time is allowed to elapse during which no stimuli are presented, and then the US
is presented. The stimulus free period is called the trace interval. It may also be called the conditioning
interval.

Simultaneous conditioning: During simultaneous conditioning, the CS and US are presented and
terminated at the same time.

Backward conditioning: Backward conditioning occurs when a conditioned stimulus immediately follows
an unconditioned stimulus. Unlike traditional conditioning models, in which the conditioned stimulus
precedes the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response tends to be inhibitory. This is because
the conditioned stimulus serves as a signal that the unconditioned stimulus has ended, rather than a
reliable method of predicting the future occurrence of the unconditioned stimulus.

Temporal conditioning: The US is presented at regularly-timed intervals, and CR acquisition is

dependent upon correct timing of the interval between US presentations. The background, or context,
can serve as the CS in this example.

Unpaired conditioning: The CS and US are not presented together. Usually they are presented as
independent trials that are separated by a variable, or pseudo-random, interval. This procedure is used
to study non-associative behavioral responses, such as sensitization.

CS-alone extinction: The CS is presented in the absence of the US. This procedure is usually done after
the CR has been acquired through "forward conditioning" training. Eventually, the CR frequency is
reduced to pre-training levels.

IMPLICATIONS OF THEORY TO NURSING

The implications of Classical Conditioning are important to nurses. For example, consider a person who
is mentally ill and who is presenting with challenging behavior. If a nurse responds to this situation by
threatening to give an injection as a punishment for such threatening behavior, then the patient may
pair punishment and medication rather than pairing medication and therapy. The same nurse (or indeed
all nurses) may then be associated with threat rather than help, a situation sometimes referred to as
'white coat syndrome'. It is important for nurses to recognize that they may be responded for what they
represent, rather than as the person they are as an individual.