Pavlovian Conditioning: The Proper Translation of "Uslovnye"
Due to a mistranslation of Pavlov's early works, most psychologists refer to "conditioned responses" rather than "conditional responses." Conditional is actually the correct translation of the Russian word, which is uslovnye (Fitzpatrick, 1990). This is from http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch05_conditioning/conditional_response.html. The Fitzpatrick reference is to a book review in Science: Fitzpatrick, S. (1990). Russians on the psyche. Science, 248, 881-883.
Todes, D. (1997). From the machine to the ghost within: Pavlov's transition from digestive physiology to conditional reflexes. American Psychologist, 52, 947-955
From the abstract:
"The intellectual terms of Pavlov's transition are evident in the phrase he chose to replace "psychic secretion"-- "uslovnyi refleks." This term is commonly translated into English as "conditioned reflex," but its original meaning for Pavlov is better translated as "conditional reflex."
And see also p. 952:
"The conceptual dynamics of Pavlov's transition can be appreciated by considering the term that he chose to replace "psychic secretion"--"uslovnyi refleks," which has become known to English speakers as "conditioned reflex."
"It is significant that in the French abstract of the report in which Tolochinov first used this term -- an abstract edited by Pavlov -- the term 'uslovnyi refleks" is translated not as "le reflex conditionn
é,' but precisely as 'le reflexe conditionnel'."Aside from historical accuracy, is there any reason we should stop saying "conditioned response" and start saying "conditional response." Yes, IMHO. Like the event that is the target of a conditional probability, P(A|B), the conditional response is dependent on the occurrence of another event -- in this case, that other event is the pairing (and subsequent association) of CS with UCS.
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This page most recently revised on the 9th of February, 2015.