What were the circumstances under which Pavlov discovered the conditioned reflex?
Pavlov started working on the digestive studies. He started working on animals as his experimental subject, but then he switched to a human patient suffering from a disease. He observed his internal processes, particularly digestive system. Using his outstanding surgical skills, he prepared a gastric fistula and used it for the recovery of the victim.
During this investigative study, he discovered the conditioned reflex. While performing the experiment, when he was preparing the gastric fistula, the dog’s gastric juices were allowed to flow and they were then collected.
Pavlov studied the pattern of secretion of these gastric juices in response to substances like meat powder. He observed that just a mere sight of the experimenter or even the sound of his footsteps triggered the secretion.
Analyzing these observations, Pavlov referred these responses as conditional because their occurrence depends on a condition, something like meat powder in this case. Later, his version was changed from conditional to conditioned, and now what everyone knows is ‘conditioned reflex’.