Pavlov on the Conditional Reflex - Papers, 1903-1936

Pavlov's research was foundational to the twentieth-century understanding of physiology and psychology, yet much of his work remains untranslated from the original Russian language. In this book, Olga Yokoyama translates the third volume of Pavlov's Complete Works, as well as his last unpublished paper. The volume also contains the papers from the sixth edition of Twenty Years of Objective Study of the Higher Nervous Activity of Animals. His concept of the conditional reflex has influenced human thought far beyond physiology, raising philosophical questions of the mind and its relationship to the psyche, creativity, and individual freedom.

List of contents

• Foreword


• Acknowledgments


• Translating Pavlov (Olga T. Yokoyama)


• Pavlov's Continuing Impact (Michael Fanselow)


• Reading Pavlov (Daniel P. Todes)


• Twenty-Years' Experience in the Objective Study of the Higher Nervous Activity of Animals (1923)


• Foreword to the Second Edition


• Foreword to the Third Edition


• Foreword to the Fourth Edition


• Foreword to the Fifth Edition


• Foreword to the Sixth Edition


• Introduction


• Pavlov 1923 edition (chapters I-XXXV)


• I. Experimental psychology and psychopathology on animals


• II. On the psychic secretion of the salivary glands


• III. The first firm steps on the path of new research


• IV. The natural science study of so-called psychic activity in higher animals


• V. Conditional reflexes in dogs after destruction of various parts of the cerebral hemispheres


• VI. On Dr. Gorshkov's cortical taste centers


• VII. Some most general points regarding the mechanism of the highest parts of the central nervous system as revealed by the study of the conditional reflexes


• VIII. Towards establishing the general characteristic of complex-nervous phenomena


• IX. Further steps in the objective analysis of complex-nervous phenomena as contrasted with their subjective understanding


• X. General comments on the centers of the cerebral hemispheres


• XI. Natural science and the brain


• XII. The challenges and operation of a state-of-the-art research laboratory for the normal activity of the highest part of the central nervous system in the higher animals


• XIII. About the food center


• XIV. The basic rules governing the work of the cerebral hemispheres


• XV. The dog with the cerebral skin analyzer destroyed


• XVI. The cerebral process of stimuli differentiation


• XVII. The principal laws governing central nervous system activity as revealed through conditional reflex research


• XVIII. Summary of results of experiments with extirpation of different parts of the cerebral hemispheres: the conditional reflex method


• XIX. Internal inhibition as a function of the cerebral hemispheres


• XX. Objective research on the highest nervous activity of animals


• XXI. The laboratory for research on activity of the central nervous system of higher animals constructed according to plans by Academician I. P. Pavlov and E. A. Ganike, using resources donated by the Kh. S. Ledentsov Society


• XXII. Researching the higher nervous activity


• XXIII. The special lability of internal inhibition in conditional reflexes


• XXIV. The "real physiology" of the brain


• XXV. Conditions for the active and restful states of the cerebral hemispheres


• XXVI. Data for the physiology of sleep


• XXVII. The purpose reflex


• XXVIII. An analysis of certain complex reflexes in the dog: the relative strength of the centers and their charge levels


• XXIX. Physiology and psychology in the study of the higher nervous activity of animals


• XXX. The freedom reflex


• XXXI. Psychiatry as a helper for the physiology of the cerebral hemispheres


• XXXII. A strictly objective study of all the higher manifestations of animal life


• XXXIII. On the so-called animal hypnosis


• XXXIV. The normal activity and general constitution of the cerebral hemispheres


• XXXV. "Internal inhibition" of the conditional reflexes and sleep are one and the same process


• Added to Pavlov 1924 edition (chapters XXXVI-XXXVIII)


• XXXVI. The characteristics of the cerebral cortex in terms of changes in the excitability of its various points


• XXXVII. Another question to be addressed in the physiology of the cerebral hemispheres


• XXXVIII. The latest advances in the objective study of the higher nervous activity of animals


• Added to Pavlov 1925 edition (chapter XXXIX)


• XXXIX. Relations between excitation and inhibition, delimitation of excitation and inhibition, and experimental neuroses in dogs


• Added to Pavlov 1928 edition (chapters XL-XLII)


• XL. Healthy and pathological states of the cerebral hemispheres


• XLI. The inhibitory type of the dog's nervous system


• XLII. Influence of interruptions in the experiments with conditional reflexes in dogs


• Added to Pavlov 1932 edition (chapters XLIII-LI)


• XLIII. A physiological theory of the types of nervous system, a.k.a. temperaments


• XLIV. Some problems in the physiology of the cerebral hemispheres


• XLV. A brief sketch of the higher nervous activity


• XLVI. A trial excursion of a physiologist into the field of psychiatry


• XLVII. On the physiology of the hypnotic state in the dog


• XLVIII. On neuroses in humans and animals


• XLIX. On the possibility of merging the subjective and the objective


• L. The reply of a physiologist to psychologist


• LI. Experimental neuroses


• Added to Pavlov 1938 edition (chapters LII-LXIII)


• LII. An attempt to interpret the symptomatology of hysteria physiologically


• LIII. Physiology of the higher nervous activity


• LIV. A case of an experimental neurosis and its treatment in the weak type of nervous system


• LV. Dynamic stereotypy of the higher part of the brain


• LVI. Feelings of possession (les sentiments d'emprise) and the ultra-paradoxical phase


• LVII. An attempt at a physiological interpretation of obsessive neurosis and paranoia


• LVIII. Shared types of animal and human higher nervous activity


• LIX. Experimental pathology of the higher nervous activity


• LX. Physiological mechanism of the so-called voluntary movements


• LXI. The conditional reflex


• LXII. Types of higher nervous activity in relation to neuroses and psychoses, and the physiological mechanism of neurotic and psychotic symptoms


• LXIII. On the establishment of a new department at the Leningrad Postgraduate Medical Institute


• Added posthumously in the 1951 edition


• A. The physiology and pathology of the higher nervous activity


• B. The problem of sleep


• C. New research on conditional reflexes


• Glossary of Pavlovian terms and/or Pavlovian definitions


• List of Printed Works by the Author's Colleagues


• Additional Sources


• Annotated Name Index

About the author

Olga T. Yokoyama holds a DDS from Tokyo Medical and Dental University, two MAs in Slavic Linguistics from the University of Illinois and Harvard University, and a PhD in Slavic Linguistics from Harvard. She has taught at Harvard University from Assistant to Full Professor, moving to the University of California, Los Angeles in 1995. Currently Yokoyama works as a Distinguished Professor in the Humanities.

Summary

Pavlov's research was foundational to the twentieth-century understanding of physiology and psychology, yet much of his work remains untranslated from the original Russian language. In this book, Olga Yokoyama sets out to translate the third volume of Pavlov's Complete Works, as well as his last unpublished paper. This volume also contains the papers from the sixth edition of Twenty Years of Objective Study of the Higher Nervous Activity of Animals, arguably the most impactful work by the 1904 Nobel Laureate. His concept of the conditional reflex has influenced human thought far beyond physiology, affecting the ways we view not only such practical matters as learning and child-rearing, but philosophical questions of the mind and its relationship to the psyche, creativity, and individual freedom.

This translation is accompanied by three introductory essays which contextualize Pavlov's work from three perspectives: that of Pavlov's text as it was subjected to translation, that of neuropsychological science today, and that of the history of scientific thought and practices.

Product details

• Authors: Olga Yokoyama, Olga (Professor Yokoyama
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.12.2022
• EAN: 9780190941871
• ISBN: 978-0-19-094187-1
• No. of pages: 760
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Medicine > Non-clinical medicine; History of Ideas, HISTORY / General, MEDICAL / Neuroscience, History of Science, Neurosciences