Some 200 former students heard about Pavlov’s theory of conditioned reflex applied to communication…and this professor confirmed what the Russian theorist taught. Theory says repeated rewards, in this case the end of my lecture, causes a predicted response. Some colleagues simplify and warn repeated propaganda or advertising can brainwash you.
In 1977, I had returned to Austin from a year’s teaching at the University of Hawaii. I brought back a bunch of color slides, mostly photographs I took of the sun setting in the Pacific.
Twice a week, I lectured to freshmen required to take Introduction to Communications 301. Required course before they could take advance courses that would lead to editing and publishing the Wall Street Journal, anchoring at CBS, or just coaching the national champion Longhorn debate team. Nobody in Texas likes to think small.
Those freshmen—now average age 63 and probably most living in Texas—gathered in an auditorium where I punched buttons to display slides on three eight-foot tall screens located on the stage behind me. In Texas, even photo-blackboards are large. At the end of my lectures, I always pushed the button in my pulpit and showed three Hawaiian sunset pictures on the tall screens. “And as the sun slowly sinks in the west, I will see you again on Thursday.” Sometimes “Tuesday” because I lectured ninety minutes, twice a week.
The semester neared an end when I lectured about Pavlov’s conditioned reflex. With 30 minutes left in the lecture, I paused then punched up three Hawaiian sunset photographs on the screen. Two hundred freshmen closed their notebooks and started rising.
I asked, “Where are you going?” Two hundred freshmen blushed, sat down. Best lecture I ever delivered.
Photo by David Mark from Pixabay
