Dwight Schrute Meet Ivan Pavlov

Today in class we learnt about Classical Conditioning and Behavioral Theories.
We learnt about Ivan Pavlov and the Pavlovian theory. The original and most famous example of classical conditioning involved the salivary conditioning of Pavlov's dogs. During his research on the physiology of digestion in dogs, Pavlov noticed that, rather than simply salivating in the presence of food, the dogs began to salivate in the presence of the lab technician who normally fed them. Pavlov called these psychic secretions. From this observation he predicted that, if a particular stimulus in the dog's surroundings were present when the dog was presented with meat powder, then this stimulus would become associated with food and cause salivation on its own. In his initial experiment, Pavlov used a bell to call the dogs to their food and, after a few repetitions, the dogs started to salivate in response to the bell.

All throughout lecture today I thought about 3things. This is such a cool theory and it is true, I'm hungry his name sounds like pavlova and thirdly I could not stop thinking about the office. Dwight and Jim are so funny and they have a reference to this example of Pavlov's dogs!

Season 3 - Episode 15
"Phyllis' Wedding"
Written by Caroline Williams
Directed by Ken Whittingham

Jim: Damn, lost another file. Going to have to reboot. Again. [Windows reboot sound] Hey, Dwight, do you want an Altoid?
Dwight: What do you think?

Jim: In school, we learned about this scientist who trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell by feeding them whenever a bell rang. For the last couple of weeks I've been conducting a similar experiment.

Jim: [Windows reboot sound] Dwight, want an Altoid?
Dwight: Okay.

Jim: [Windows reboot sound] Altoid?
Dwight: Sure

Jim: [Windows reboot sound] MintDwight?
Dwight: Inbwit? Yes.

Dwight: [Windows reboot sound] [Dwight holds out his hand, sighs]
Jim: What are you doing?
Dwight: I...
Jim: What?
Dwight: I don't know. My mouth tastes so bad all of a sudden. [nasty, dry mouth-smaking noise]

 

Source:

http://www.officequotes.net/no3-15.php

 

 

Sorry that the quality of this video is so bad, but its the best I could find on youtube.