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Pavlov was investigating the gastric function of dogs, by externalising a salivary gland so he could collect, measure, and analyse the saliva produced in response to food under different conditions. He noticed that the dogs tended to salivate before food was actually delivered to their mouths, and set out to investigate this "psychic secretion", as he called it. He correctly decided that this was more interesting than the chemistry of saliva, and changed the focus of his research, carrying out a long series of experiments in which he manipulated the stimuli occurring before the presentation of food. He thereby established the basic laws for the establishment and extinction of what he called "conditional reflexes" - i.e. reflex responses, like salivation, that only occurred conditional upon specific previous experiences of the animal. These experiments were carried out in the 1890s and 1900s, and were known to western scientists through translations of individual accounts, but first became fully available in English in a book published in 1927.

Perhaps unfortunately, Pavlov's phrase "conditional reflex" was mistranslated from the RussianRussian /'ruski j'zk/) is the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages. Russian belongs to the group of Indo-European languages, and is therefore related to Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, as well as the modern Germanic, Romance, and Celtic languages, inclu as "conditioned reflex", and other scientists reading his work concluded that since such reflexes were conditioned, they must be produced by a process called conditioning. As Pavlov's work became known in the West, particularly through the writings of John B. WatsonJohn Broadus Watson ( January 9, 1878 September 25, 1958) was an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism. He is famous for boasting, facetiously, that he could take any 20 human infants, and by applying behavioural te, the idea of "conditioning" as an automatic form of learning became a key concept in the developing specialism of comparative psychologyComparative psychology taken in its most usual, broad, sense, refers in to the study of the behaviour and mental life of animals other than human beings. It is synonymous with animal psychology but although the latter would be a more accurate term, it is, and the general approach to psychology that underlay it, behaviorismSocial philosophy Behaviorism (or behaviourism is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behavior is interesting and worthy of scientific research. Within that broad approach, there are different emphases. Some behaviorists argue simply t. Bertrand RussellBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell ( May 18, 1872 February 2, 1970) was one of the most influential mathematicians, philosophers and logicians working (mostly) in the 20th century, an important political liberal, activist and a populariser was an enthusastic advocate of the importance of Pavlov's work for philosophy of mindPhilosophy of mind is the philosophical study of the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, and consciousness. These areas give rise to some very difficult problems and questions, and there are many opinions as to their so.

Unlike many pre-revolutionary scientists, Pavlov was highly regarded by the SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR ( Russian: ; tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (SSSR) also called the Soviet Union ( ; tr. Sovetsky Soyuz , was a state in much of the northern region of Eurasia that existed from 1922 until 1 government, and was able to continue his researches until he was a considerable age. Pavlov himself was not favorable towards Marxism, but as a Nobel Prize winner he was seen as a valuable political asset, and as such lavishly funded. In later life he was particularly interested in trying to use conditioning to establish an experimental model of the induction of neurosisA neurosis in psychoanalytic theory, is an ineffectual coping strategy that Sigmund Freud suggested was caused by emotions from past experience overwhelming or interfering with present experience. For example, someone attacked by a dog as a toddler may ha. His laboratory in Moscow has been carefully preserved.

It is popularly believed that Pavlov always signalled the occurrence of food by ringing a bell. In fact his writings record the use of a wide variety of auditory stimuli, including whistles, metronomes, tuning forks and the bubbling of air through water, in addition to a range of visual stimuli. When, in the 1990s, it became easier for Western scientists to visit Pavlov's laboratory in Moscow, no trace of a bell could be found.