sly dogs

[Vaska Tumir]

Totally off topic but irresistible to this dog-person here.  Lovely to contemplate Pavlov's misery, but especially frustration, as his "subjects" turned to civil disobedience -- of sorts.  Excerpted from Ian Hacking's "Our Fellow Animals" in the current New York Review of Books.


"But first consider Pavlov, who performed grotesque operations on the glandular
 systems of his dogs so he could measure the secretions that were produced by
 the scent of food, or by "conditioning" stimuli like ringing bells. It is less well
 known that the dogs responded with passive resistance. As soon as they were
 put in their stalls, they became sleepy, and often went to sleep.5 This was
 potentially disastrous for Pavlov, who was running a knowledge factory, with a
 vast corps of trainee doctors, all of whom had to publish a research dissertation
 before qualifying. Sleeping dogs equals no doctoral theses. 

 Pavlov and Köhler make a pretty contrast. When Sultan sat still, contemplating
 a new arrangement of bananas, Köhler said he was solving problems. Pavlov
 scoffed at such anthropomorphism. Sultan was just resting. But because
 Pavlov's lab processed so many dogs, distinct personality types were
 recognized. Different dogs had different characters! Passionate dogs are easily
 excited by the sight of food, easily teased by experimenters playing around with
 the food. Other dogs are self-possessed and cannot be teased. Others see
 through the experiments "as if they understand the deceit being practiced on
 them, and turn their back on the preferred food, apparently from a sense of
 insult." "Suspicious" or "depressed" dogs. "The older the dog the more
 restrained and peaceful it is."  The personality of the dog was the "main enemy"
 of the experimenter—but could be put to good use, for you could blame bad
 results on psychic idiosyncrasies of individual dogs."

Vaska


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