In the 1890s, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov noticed how dogs began salivating not just when food was placed in front of them, but when they heard the footsteps of the person bringing the food. He ran experiments where he’d ring a bell right before he fed his dogs. After repeating this several times, the dogs started salivating at the sound of the bell alone, no food needed. Pavlov had identified classical conditioning, or learning to associate one stimulus (the bell) with a different stimulus (the food) to produce a conditioned response (salivation). Now, I like to think I’m a little […]