Final answer:
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov initiated the study of classical conditioning, where organisms learn to associate stimuli and anticipate events, through his experiments with dogs.
Step-by-step explanation:
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov initiated the study of classical conditioning. Pavlov, a Russian scientist, is renowned for his experiments with dogs where he demonstrated that animals could learn to associate a neutral stimulus, like a bell, with an innate response, such as salivation in response to food. Pavlov's process involved presenting a stimuli and thereby predicting events, which is a core concept of classical conditioning.
In classical conditioning, organisms learn to associate two events that occur in sequence. For example, Pavlov's dog experiments showed that if a bell (neutral stimulus) was consistently rung before presenting food (unconditioned stimulus), eventually the dog began to salivate (conditioned response) just by hearing the bell alone. In contrast, operant conditioning involves learning through consequences, such as reinforcement or punishment, after a behavior is exhibited.