Ivan Pavlov, a Russian scientist, discovered classical conditioning while studying the digestive system of dogs. He found that dogs deprived of food would salivate when his assistant entered the room. Through further investigation, Pavlov established that a stimulus that initially produces no response can acquire the ability to produce a response through repeated pairing with another stimulus that does elicit a response. Classical conditioning involves an unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response.