No subject

[Mark Kohut]

>From a review of a new book on Russian psychology
We learn that in 1954 a Soviet dictionary defined cybernetics as “a
reactionary pseudo-science that appeared in the USA after World War II” –
not an overwhelming mandate, and an attitude that post-Stalinist thinking
took some time to address.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics:_Or_Control_and_Communication_in_the_Animal_and_the_Machine

Cybernetics, the book by Norman Weiner which led to his popular
explication: The Human Use of Human Beings, a Pynchon fave.

The Pavlovianism of Russian psychology:
Legacy[edit
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ivan_Pavlov&action=edit&section=6>
]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:One_of_Pavlov%27s_dogs.jpg>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:One_of_Pavlov%27s_dogs.jpg>
One of Pavlov's dogs, preserved <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxidermy> at
The Pavlov Museum, Ryazan, Russia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryazan>

The concept for which Pavlov is famous is the "conditioned reflex
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning>" (or in his own
words the *conditional reflex*) he developed jointly with his assistant Ivan
Filippovitch Tolochinov
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ivan_Filippovitch_Tolochinov&action=edit&redlink=1>
in
1901. He had come to learn this concept of conditioned reflex when
examining the rates of salivations among dogs. Pavlov had learned that when
a buzzer or metronome was sounded in subsequent time with food being
presented to the dog in consecutive sequences, the dog would initially
salivate when the food was presented. The dog would later come to associate
the sound with the presentation of the food and salivate upon the
presentation of that stimulus.[32]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov#cite_note-32> Tolochinov, whose
own term for the phenomenon had been "reflex at a distance", communicated
the results at the Congress of Natural Sciences in Helsinki
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki> in 1903.[33]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov#cite_note-33> Later the same
year Pavlov more fully explained the findings, at the 14th International
Medical Congress in Madrid <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid>, where he
read a paper titled *The Experimental Psychology and Psychopathology of
Animals*.[9]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov#cite_note-nobelbio-9>

As Pavlov's work became known in the West, particularly through the
writings of John B. Watson <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Watson>
 and B. F. Skinner <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner>, the idea
of "conditioning" as an automatic form of learning became a key concept in
the developing specialism of comparative psychology
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_psychology>, and the general
approach to psychology that underlay it, behaviorism
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism>. Pavlov's work with classical
conditioning was of huge influence to how humans perceive themselves, their
behavior and learning processes and his studies of classical conditioning
continue to be central to modern behavior therapy.[34]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov#cite_note-34> The British
philosopher <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy> Bertrand Russell
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell> was an enthusiastic
advocate of the importance of Pavlov's work for philosophy of mind
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mind>.[35]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov#cite_note-35>

Pavlov's research on conditional reflexes greatly influenced not only
science, but also popular culture. Pavlovian conditioning was a major theme
in Aldous Huxley <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley>'s dystopian
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopian>novel, *Brave New World
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World>*, and also to a large
degree in Thomas Pynchon
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon>'s *Gravity's
Rainbow <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity%27s_Rainbow>*.

It is popularly believed that Pavlov always signaled the occurrence of food
by ringing a bell. However, his writings record the use of a wide variety
of stimuli, including electric shocks, whistles
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistle>, metronomes
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metronome>, tuning forks
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuning_fork>, and a range of visual stimuli,
in addition to the ring of a bell. In 1994, Catania cast doubt on whether
Pavlov ever actually used a bell in his famous experiments.[36]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov#cite_note-36> Littman
tentatively attributed the popular imagery to Pavlov’s contemporaries Vladimir
Mikhailovich Bekhterev <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Bekhterev>
 and John B. Watson <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Watson>. Roger
K. Thomas, of the University of Georgia, however, claimed to have found
"three additional references to Pavlov's use of a bell that strongly
challenge Littman's argument".[37]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov#cite_note-37>In reply, Littman
suggested that Catania's recollection, that Pavlov did not use a bell in
research, was "convincing .. and correct".[38]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov#cite_note-38>

In 1964 the eminent psychologist H. J. Eysenck
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._J._Eysenck> reviewed Pavlov's "Lectures
on Conditioned Reflexes" for the British Medical Journal
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Medical_Journal>: Volume I –
"Twenty-five Years of Objective Study of the Higher Nervous Activity of
Animals", Volume II – "Conditioned Reflexes and Psychiatry".[39]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov#cite_note-39>

The Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Academy_of_Sciences> was founded by
Pavlov in 1925 and named after him following his death.[40]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov#cite_note-40>
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