Bourret Lab Terms

Abolishing Operation

An event that decreases the efficacy of a reinforcer and the likelihood of behavior maintained by that reinforcer.

Phylogeny

The evolutionary history of a species.

Generality

The range of conditions under which a functional relation holds.

Variable Interval Schedule (VI)

A schedule in which reinforcement is arranged for the first response after a period of time and in which the periods of time vary across schedule completions.

Response

An instance of behavior.

Culture

Operant response patterns established by members of a group and observed across generations within the group.

Positive Punisher

Any stimulus that when delivered following a response decreases the probability of that response.

Restricted Operant

An experimental preparation that places limits on the opportunity to respond.

Operant Behavior

Any behavior sensitive to manipulations of consequences.

Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

A stimulus that elicits an unconditioned response without requiring a conditioning history.

Respondent Extinction

Breaking the pairing between conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus such that the conditioned stimulus no longer elicits the conditioned response.

Compound Schedule

A combination of two or more schedules.

Free Operant

An experimental preparation with no restrictions on the opportunity to respond.

Uniformitarianism

The position that generality should be assumed until boundary conditions are identified.

Echoic

A vocal verbal operant maintained by generalized or varied reinforcement and occasioned by an auditory verbal discriminative stimulus for which there is point-to-point correspondence between the response and the occasioning stimulus.

Behavior

Anything the organism does other than physiological processes.

Precurrent Behavior

Behavior maintained by the effect it has in increasing the probability of other behavior that subsequently encounters reinforcement.

Interval Schedule

A schedule in which reinforcement is arranged for the first response after a period of time.

Generalized Mand

A mand that covaries with a variety of specific mands and is sensitive to the motivating operations controlling all of those associated mands.

Discriminated Operant

An operant defined in terms of the stimuli occasioning it as well as the reinforcer maintaining it.

Topographical Response Class

A collection of responses that share a common form.

Operant Extinction (EXT)

The withholding of a reinforcer previously contingent on a response that results in a decrease in the probablity of that response.

Discriminative stimulus for nonreinforcement (S-delta)

A stimulus correlated with extinction for a response and that decreases the probability of that response.

Aversive Stimulus

A stimulus that functions as a positive punisher and negative reinforcer.

Philosophic Doubt (Skepticism)

The position that statements of functional relations shoud be empirically tested.

Establishing Operation

An event that increases the efficacy of a reinforcer and increases the likelihood of behavior mainted by that reinforcer.

Qualifying Autoclitic

An autoclitic maintained by the effect it has in modifying the strength of a listener's response to an accompanying verbal operant.

Escape Extinction

Continued presence of an aversive stimulus following an espace-maintained response resulting in a decrease in the probailty of the response.

Positive Reinforcer

ANy stimulus that, when delivered following a response, increase the probability of that response.

Unconditioned Response (UR; reflex)

A response that is elicited by an unconditioned stimulus.

Conditioned Response

A response elicited by a conditioned stimulus.

Condition Reinforcer

A stimulus that functions as a reinforcer due to its association with another reinforcer.

Stimulus

Any event that affects behavior.

Concurrent Chains Schedule

A compound schedule composed of two or more component chained schedules, each with their own response, operating simultaneously and independently. Initial links are presented concurrently; completion of an initial link results in access to the next link of the associated chain and removal of access to alternative chains.

Avoidance Behavior

Behavior maintained by contingent reduction in the rate of aversive stimuli.

Operant Class

A response class for which all response topographies have the same maintaining reinforcer.

Variable Ratio Schedule (VR)

A schedule in which reinforcement is arranged for the last of a specified number of responses and the number of responses varies across schedule completions.

Contingency

A differential probability of one event given another.

Discrimination (stimulus control)

Differential responding in the presence of stimuli that are correlated with reinforcement.

Determinism

The position that natural events are functionally related to other natural events.

Response Generalization

The spread of the effects of reinforcement to responses similar to those that have been previously reinforced.

Fixed Ratio Schedule (FR)

A schedule in which reinforcement is arranged for the last of a specified number of responses; performance is characterized by a break-and-run pattern.

Empiricism

The philosophical position that knowledge requires systematic observation.

Respondent Conditioning

The process by which a neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus as a function of it's association with an already established eliciting stimulus.

Environment

The entire constellation of stimuli that can affect behavior.

Spontaneous Recovery

The reoccurrence of behavior at the beginning of a session after it extinguished in a previous session.

Parsimony

The notion that, all things being equal, the simplest explanation is the best.

Response Class

A collection of responses that share a common functional relation with a class of stimuli.

Discriminative Stimulus (SD)

A stimulus that is correlated with the availability of reinforcement for a response and increases the probability of that response.

Ontogeny

The life history of an individual organism.

Radical Behaviorism

Thoroughgoing behaviorism including and analysis of private events and covert behavior.

Conditioned Aversive Stimulus

A stimulus that acquired its aversive properties as a function of its association with another aversive stimuls.

Motivating Operation

An event that alters the effectiveness of a reinforcer and the probability of responses maintained by that reinforcer.

Habituation

A reduction, over repeated presentations, in the behavior elicited by a stimulus.

Methodological Behaviorism

Limited behaviorism, excluding analysis of private events and covert behavior.

Negative Reinforcer

Any stimulus that when removed following a response increases the probability of that response.

Ratio Schedule of Reinforcement

A schedule in which reinforcement is arranged for the last of a specified number of responses.

Verbal Operant

Responding maintained by the effect it has on listener responding.

Respondent Behavior

Behavior elicited by stimuli and insensitive to consequent manipulations.

Stimulus Generalization

The spread of the effects of reinforcement to stimuli similar to those that have been present when reinforcement has previously occured.

Reflexive Conditioned Motivating Operation

A conditioned motivating operation in which the establishing stimulus establishes itself as a reinforcer.

Functional Relation

A relation between two variables in which the manipulation of one variable results in a change in the other.

Schedule of reinforcement

The conditions under which a reinforcer is delivered.

Mixed Schedule

A compound schedule in which two or more component schedules operate in alteration with no correlated stimuli.

Escape Behavior

Behavior maintained by contingent termination of an aversive event.

Conditioned Motivating Operation

An event that has acquired a motivating operation function.

Mand

A verbal operant maintained by a characteristic reinforcer and sensitive to motivating operations for the reinforcer.

Tact

A verbal operant maintained by generalized or varied reinforcement and occasioned by a nonverbal discriminative stimulus.

Pre-Ratio Pause (PRP)

The pause in responding that occurs after reinforcement and before responding on some intermittent schedule. Sometimes also called a post-reinforcement pause.

Conditional Probability

The probablity of one event given another.

Multiple Schedule

A compound schedule in which two or more component schedules operate in alternation each associated with a particular stimulus.

Intraverbal

A verbal operant maintained by generalized or varied reinforcement and occasioned by a verbal discriminative stimulus for which there is no point-to-point correspondence between the response and the occasioning stimulus.

Unconditioned reinforcer (primary)

A reinforcer that does not depend on a history of conditioning for its reinforcing properties.

Listener Behavior

Behavior controlled by stimuli with culturally generated stimulus functions.

Surrogate Conditioned Motivating Operation

A condition motivating operation that gains the stimulus function of an associated motivating operation.

Operant Conditioning

The process by which the likelihood of behavior is modified through manipulation of consequences.

Cumulative Record

A graph of the cumulative frequency of responding across time.

Consequence

An event that follows a response.

Intermittent Reinforcement

Reinforcement that does not follow every response.

Fixed Interval Schedule (FI)

A schedule in which reinforcement is arranged for the first response after a set period of time that does not change across reinforcement deliveries and produces scalloped temporal response patterns, in the aggregate.

Differential Reinforcement

Reinforcement for which at least one parameter of reinforcement differs across responses.

Teleology

Couching an explanation in terms of future events.

Transitive Conditioned Motivating Operation

A conditioned motivating operation for which a stimulus function is altered as a function of that stimulus' association with the availability of reinforcement for a response.

Conditioned Stimulus

A stimulus that elicits a response as a function of its association with anther eliciting stimulus.

Discriminative Stimulus for Punishment (Sp)

A stimulus that differentially signals punishment for a response and decreases the probability of that response.

Negative Punisher

Any stimulus that, when removed following a response, decreases the probability of that response.

Concurrent Schedule

A compound schedule composed of two or more component schedules, each with their own response, operating simultaneously and independently.