Ivan Pavlov /

Oxford psychologist Jeffrey Gray's portrayal-and-assessment of Pavlov is agreeably forthright and sensible--a fine addition to the Modern Masters series. Honor is due the Russian who, having received a Nobel prize for his studies of digestion, devoted the remainder of a long life to the study of how physiological processes--unconditioned responses--could be conditioned to arbitrary stimuli. Gray summarizes the experimental work and the constant theory-building Pavlov engaged in to explain the hows and whys of conditioning. The explanations, however, are still controversial and the simple reflex, conditioned or otherwise, is by no means simple. Inevitably, Gray sprinkles the text with probability and contingency theories, with speculation about disinhibition and generalization, extinction and higher order conditioning--whereas today theorists deal with more interesting mental processes, e.g., thinking and problem-solving. But he progresses to other aspects of Pavlov's work too--his concern for theories of personality and neurosis, and his evolving grand schemes of how the brain is put together. Gray points out, for example, that unlike scores of animal-learning theorists in the West, Pavlov did not work with anonymous inbred rats; his dogs were individuals studied in long-term experiments. From his observations, he constructed theories of personality based on whether the individual possessed ""strong"" or ""weak"" cortical cells, whether liable to respond more to excitation or inhibition, and so on--ideas picked up and refashioned by such western psychologists as H. Eysenck. Gray also points out, however, the indebtedness to Pavlov of some behavior mod theories fashionable today, and in general is apologetic for Pavlov's fanciful brain theories. So, perhaps he is a trifle indulgent. But on the whole this is a neat, unforbidding summation for the adventurous general reader. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.