THE AUDITORY REACTIONS OF THE DOG STUDIED 

 BY THE PAWLOW METHOD 



SERGIUS MORGULIS 



Biochemical Laboratory of Columbia University, New York 



From the time the first review 1 of Pawlow's ingenious method 

 in animal psychology was published in this country great progress 

 has been made by the numerous students of Professor Pawlow 

 which puts an entirely new aspect on the psychology of the dog. 

 Unfortunately, we are not in a position at this moment to offer 

 a further extensive summary of the results obtained by this 

 method since 1909, but a brief review of the recent paper of 

 Usiewitch, 2 concerning the auditory faculty of the dog may prove 

 of interest to American investigators. 



It will not be amiss to state succinctly for the benefit of those 

 not familiar with the first article referred to, the principle of 

 Pawlow's method, the minute analysis of the animal reactions 

 performed with its aid and some of the broad generalizations 

 regarding nervous activity deduced from those analyses. 



It is a matter of common experience that the salivary reflex 

 may be actuated by the mere thought or even remote suggestion 

 of a. delectable article, but it remained for Pawlow's unusual 

 acumen to recognize in this trivial fact the means provided by 

 nature for penetrating the hidden workings of the animal's 

 psychology. The presence or absence of the salivary reflex 

 informs the investigator of the organism's reaction to a given 

 stimulus. The method, therefore, possesses all the advantages 

 of being strictly objective, i.e., quite independent of the observer's 

 interpretation or " personliche Ueberzeugung," as the Germans 

 name it. 



Starting with the idea of the salivary reflex, it was a relatively 

 simple matter to determine the flow of saliva both quantitatively 



1 Yerkes, R. M., and Morgulis, S. The Method of Pawlow in Animal Psychology- 

 Psychol. Bull., vol. 6, pp. 257-273, 1909. 



* Usiewitch, M. A Physiological Investigation of the Auditory Capacity of the 

 Dog. Bull, St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy, Vol. 24, pp. 484-502; Vol. 

 25, pp. 872-891, 1912 (Russian). 



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