Animals on our planet possess a marvelous adaptation mechanism which helps them to study their environment and accumulate knowledge throughout their lives. This mechanism partly depends on the functions of the sense organs. Their characteristic feature is that they soon become ‘accustomed’ to stimuli of continuous action and stop responding to them, but react at [...]
Temporary connections are established when two events — one important for the organism and the other inessential — coincide in time. If a dog hears the rattle of its bowl each time before it is given food, it will very soon develop a conditioned reflex, and the rattle alone will eventually be sufficient to evoke [...]
The human brain is the greatest wonder Nature has ever wrought on this planet. Science was unable to cope with its astonishing complexity till the twentieth century. The great Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov and his numerous disciples were responsible for the first major achievements in the study of the brain. Pavlov’s success may be explained [...]
