Operant conditioning

Learning involving a relation between an action and its consequences. In a mobile contingency task, an infant’s kicking causes movement of a mobile; later kicking can be used as a retention measure with appropriate baseline and noncontingent controls.

A consequence that decreases the future occurrence of a response. It is distinguished from negative reinforcement, which increases a response by removing or preventing an aversive event.

Arranging consequences contingent on clearly specified behaviour to change its future occurrence. The target, measurement, timing and alternative responses determine what is reinforced; reinforcement is not identical to punishment.

Analysis of antecedents and consequences that maintain a specified behaviour. A useful formulation predicts what changes when a relevant contingency is manipulated, rather than merely giving the behaviour a new label.

Learning actions that prevent or escape an anticipated aversive outcome. In anxiety, immediate relief and the absence of disconfirming experience can maintain avoidance even when the feared prediction is inaccurate.

An action reducing contact with an anticipated aversive situation or experience. It can provide immediate relief while limiting corrective learning, but avoidance of genuine danger is not thereby pathological.

A precaution intended to prevent a feared outcome or conceal anxiety. It can maintain fear when safety is attributed to the precaution, when it blocks informative experience, or when it produces misleading symptoms. Whether a behavior has this function depends on context; objectively useful precautions are not inherently pathological.

Use of a precaution in a way intended to support engagement while preserving useful learning. Its value cannot be settled from its label; prediction testing, attribution of safety, replacement precautions and longer-term transfer should be measured. An undergraduate contamination experiment showed why reduction in symptoms need not be logically impossible in the presence of a safety behavior.^[ref]

Seeking another person's confirmation of safety or certainty. In an anxiety-maintaining cycle, immediate relief can reinforce repeated requests without changing the underlying interpretation. This function should be distinguished from appropriate information seeking or clinical assessment.

Learning from rewarding outcomes to guide subsequent choices. A reduced change in response bias can reflect altered outcome sensitivity, integration over trials, exploration or performance; it does not uniquely diagnose reduced experienced pleasure.

An outcome that is valued or promotes approach under specified conditions. Its hedonic impact, learned predictive value and ability to motivate action can dissociate; no single behavioural measurement identifies all three.

A behavioural phenomenon in which prior exposure to uncontrollable aversive events impairs subsequent escape or coping. The original explanation invoked learning that action and outcome are independent; later accounts emphasize learning control over stress responses. The phenomenon is an animal model relevant to some symptoms, not a complete diagnosis of human depression.

For an action $A$ and an outcome $O$, a descriptive contingency is $\Delta P=P(O\mid A)-P(O\mid \neg A)$. If both probabilities are high, outcomes may be frequent while control is absent. If both are low, outcomes may be rare while control is still absent. For causal control, actions must be experimentally varied or common causes adequately controlled; observational conditional probabilities alone can be confounded.

An increase in a response because it terminates or avoids an aversive outcome. It is not punishment: reinforcement describes the increase in responding, whereas punishment describes a decrease.

A ribbon links an infant’s ankle to a mobile so kicking produces visible movement. Baseline kicking and a later nonreinforced test permit assessment of a learned contingency. A reminder moving the familiar mobile can reactivate later performance; the crucial control asks whether reminder exposure alone teaches the response.^[ref]