Conditioned reflexes and habit formation / by W. Horsley Gantt.

  • W Horsley Gantt
Date:
[1932?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Conditioned reflexes and habit formation / by W. Horsley Gantt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Reprinted from the British Medical Journal, March 19th, 1932 CONDITIONED REFLEXES AND HABIT FORMATION BY W. HORSLEY GANTT, B.Sc., M.D. (Phipps Psychiatric Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore) Habits are but chains of conditioned reflexes. Pavlov says: It is obvious that the different kinds of habits based on training, education, and discipline are nothing more than a long chain of conditioned reflexes. Even as far back as 1890, William James recognized the reflex character of habit, that, of course, a simple habit, like every other nervous event—the habit of snuffling, for example, or of putting one’s hands into one’s pockets, or of biting one’s nails—is mechanically nothing but a reflex discharge, and its anatomical substratum must be a path in the nervous system. In habit we have a situation, a response, and a reward, which may be either distant or immediate. In the conditioned reflex terminology there is a signal or conditioned stimulus (situation) and the conditioned reflex, and usually immediately (in our experimental room) there follows the unconditioned stimulus plus unconditioned reflex. Definition of Conditioned Reflex The conditioned reflex is formed during the life of the animal, is subject to fluctuation, and is a peculiarity of the individual rather than of the species. It is much less stable than the unconditioned reflex. Some of the very old and well-formed conditioned reflexes are difficult to distinguish from those unconditioned. For example, is the winking of the eye when an object is brought suddenly in front of it a conditioned or an unconditioned reflex? It is present in practically every one of us, and is rela¬ tively stable and unchanging. Is the secretion of saliva in a dog to the odour and sight of fresh meat that is presented to it conditioned or unconditioned? Volborth has shown that in newborn calves there is no winking until the object has impinged upon the eye, but once this has happened there is ever after the winking reflex. Puppies that have never eaten fresh meat do not salivate when it is presented to them for the first time, but once they have had it in their mouths and the odour and [307/32]