Final answer:
The classic sham feeding experiments by Ivan Pavlov led to the discovery of classical conditioning, where he showed that dogs could learn to associate a neutral stimulus like a bell with food, leading to a conditioned response of salivation.
Step-by-step explanation:
In the classic sham feeding experiments, Ivan Pavlov conducted research on the digestive system of dogs, which unexpectedly led to his discovery of the learning process now known as classical conditioning. Pavlov did various experiments where he paired a neutral stimulus, such as a ringing bell, with an unconditioned stimulus—a piece of food that naturally caused dogs to salivate. After several repetitions, the dogs began to associate the neutral stimulus with the food, and they would start to salivate at the sound of the bell alone, displaying a conditioned response. This important finding illustrated that behavioral conditioning involved both unlearned (unconditioned) responses and learned (conditioned) responses to stimuli in the environment.