A film from 1930 on Pavlovian conditioning has been made available on the Wellcome Library website. Originally made in Russian, the film was by Professors L. N. Voskresenki and D. S. Fursikov. The film is described as follows,

This black and white, silent film, attempts to show the difference between conditioned and unconditioned responses in animals and humans. It begins by enacting Pavlov’s experiments on a dog’s salivary mechanism. Gradually we are shown how the unconditioned production of saliva at the sight or smell of food can be conditioned to appear at the sight of a flashing light. We also examine a newborn baby’s reflexes of sucking and grabbing and see how they become conditioned as it grows older. Simple animated diagrams attempt to explain changes in the brain as a subject becomes conditioned. Professor Krasnagorski enacts a salivary test on a young boy in his laboratory. Attention is paid to the difference between instinctive behaviour in animals and learned behaviour. This is illustrated by images of animals in the wild and those in zoos. We see trained seals performing tricks for rewards and Prof. Gladishikov demonstrating ‘the pain method of training’ on lions and bears.

The film can be either viewed online or downloaded here.

Thanks to Jenn Bazar for bringing this film to my attention.