Antecedent

Respondent Relations

Antecedent stimuli can function as unconditioned and conditioned elicitors for respondent behavior. For example, a puff of air on the eyeball is an unconditioned stimulus for the eye-blink reflex; it elicits an eye blink without any prior learning history. Initially, the sound of the optometrist's finger on the button of the glaucoma-testing machine is a neutral stimulus for the eye-blink reflex; the sound has no effect on eye blinking. After being paired with the air puff just a few times, the finger-on-the-button sound becomes a conditioned stimulus; the sound elicits blinking as a learned reflex.

Operant Relations

Antecedent events can have motivating and discriminative functions for operant behavior. With respect to [Page 1136]motivation, an establishing operation (EO) is an antecedent event or stimulus that creates a condition of deprivation (e.g., going without water for several hours) or aversive stimulation (e.g., a teacher's scowl) that establishes some stimulus, object, or event as a reinforcer and predisposes an individual to behave in certain ways. For example, water deprivation increases the momentary reinforcing effectiveness of water (i.e., any behavior immediately followed by access to water will be strengthened) and increases the current frequency of any behaviors that have produced water in the past (e.g., looking for a water fountain or asking, “May I have some water, please?”). The first effect establishes water ingestion as a currently effective reinforcer; the second effect evokes behaviors that have been reinforced by water in the past. Establishing operations can be unconditioned or unlearned (UEO) and conditioned or learned (CEO). The term setting event is often used in the applied literature to refer to some of the functions of EOs, but establishing operation is a more conceptually concise term.

...