3 Pavlov's Dogs

The cute animal science is back!

(this post is shorter than the previous ones because I wrote on Inkstone and forgot to save...)

I will be talking about Pavlov's dog this week, it is named after Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov studied the dog's digestive system and discovered that the dogs could link a specific item/action with being fed, and the dogs would also start to react to that specific action instead of the food over time.

White lab coat + food = the dog would drool because of the food

And the dog then linked the lab coat and food together

White lab coat = food, so the dog would drool because it thought there would be food.

Pavlov discovered this because the dogs would start to drool each time a researcher entered the room. They had white lab coats on and the dogs thought white lab coat= food. So, they would drool when they saw a researcher xD. They could eat the researcher but that is a bad idea…

The team did some test where they would do a specific action like ring a bell/touch the leg before the dog was fed. After some time, the dogs tied the ringing of the bell to being fed, and they would start to produce saliva when they rung the bell. So, they would start to produce saliva even though they weren't getting fed.

So, in the beginning, it was:

Specific action (bell ringing) + food presented = the dog producing saliva

After some time, it was:

Specific action (bell ringing) = the dog producing saliva

Because the dogs knew from past experiences that they would be fed after the bell rung.

This did remind me of an experiment my teacher told me about in 6th grade, a rat/mouse (I can't remember anymore) was trapped inside a box and they had an infinite amount of food and water. The scientists would light a lamp at random times of the day and they would dispense some sugar into the water after the lamp was turned off. They observed the brain activity of the rat/mouse and it started to react to the lamp instead of the sugar water after some time. The scientist then lighted the lamp a couple of times without releasing the sugar into the water and the mouse/rat had the same reaction as if the sugar was released into the water :)

Cya all in 14 days :D