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Born: 1849 - Ryazan, central Russia Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was born in 1849 in Ryazan, a small village in central Russia. He studied at a theological seminary, eventually leaving for the University of St. Petersburg. There Pavlov studied chemistry and physiology, receiving his doctorate in 1879. He went on to become a skilled surgeon and professor. Pavlov's work focused on the physiology of circulation and digestion. He was held in extremely high regard both in Russia and internationally. His research on the digestive glands won him the Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine in 1904. Pavlov is best known for his work regarding conditioned behavior in dogs. In 1901, he showed that if he rang a bell each time a dog was fed, the dog would salivate at the sound of the bell, even without the presence of food. This demonstrates what Pavlov called a "conditioned reflex," as opposed to an innate reflex, such as the natural flow of saliva that occurs when a dog is being fed. The learning process, in which the dog's nervous system comes to associate the bell with food, is called "conditioning." Conditioned and innate reflexes constitute the basis of animal behavior. His ideas about conditioned reflexes played a large role in the behaviorist theory of psychology, which was introduced by John Watson in 1913. Pavlov continued his work up until his death in 1936 at age 87.
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