23 May The experiment of Pavlov
Pavlov, the Russian scientist, did many experiments in this area. He said anything can be associated with anything else – our lives are just the sum total of our associations. One of his experiments is well known. It involved him offering food to a dog. Pavlov would keep some food at some distance so that the dog would start salivating while he was looking at the food. Then Pavlov rang bell. There is no connection between a bell and the secretion of saliva, but whenever the food was offered to the dog the secretion of saliva began and then the bell was rung. This was done for fifteen days; the mental association between the bell and the saliva was now established. On the sixteenth day there was no food, but when the bell was rung the dog began to salivate. The ringing of the bell activated the dog’s memory of the food: the bell became a symbol for the food.
Hidden Mysteries
Osho
