|
|
This site was designed to be used by high school biology teachers who want to address the nature of science.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Genetics of Learning and Memory |
Pavlov's Pupil
The Russian scientist, Ivan Pavlov, was famous for an experiment in which he taught a dog to salivate to the sound of a bell. Try this experiment on friends and classmates to see if you can teach them to bark like Pavlov's dog.
|
Materials:
|
A bell or whistle
A lemon or other object
|
Experiment:
1.
|
Show your experimental subjects (friends or classmates) a bell and a lemon. Ask them to bark (woof woof) every time they see the lemon.
|
2.
|
Hold up the lemon while at the same time ringing the bell. Repeat this 10 or more times, until they appear to be responding automatically to the lemon.
|
3.
|
Ring the bell without holding up the lemon.
|
What happened?
Like Pavlov's dog, we are often conditioned to respond to various stimuli in our day-to-day lives. Can you think of some examples?
Do you think a drug abuser could be conditioned to continue using a drug, even after it stopped having the same rewarding effect?
Can you think of some associations that drug users may make that reinforce their drug-taking behaviors?
|
|
|
|
|
|
