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You probably very accurately predicted that the firecracker will explode.

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Since the time of Aristotle, philosophers have recognized that one of the most important ways we learn

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is by forming links or associations between events.

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In this animation, and from past experience, you link the burning of a fuse to an explosion.

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Philosophers could only guess at how learning look place.

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The Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov was the first person to do careful scientific studies of this type of learning.

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Ivan Pavlov did not set out to study learning. He was a physiologist not a psychologist!

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So, how did he come to study associations? He was studying salivation in dogs.

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He attached a tube to the dog’s salivary glands to collect the secretions. He then used a tube to deliver powder to the dog,

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and as you might expect, the dog started salivating. Then Pavlov noticed something odd.

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Over time, the dog started to salivate before the meat powder was given to the animal. Why?

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Pavlov wondered if the dog was forming a link between a recent event or stimulus,

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say the sound of the experimenter's footsteps entering the room and the delivery of the meat powder.

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He decided to study this apparent learning of an association.