ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the stimulus-stimulus contingencies on response categories ranging from internal to external, specific to diffuse, and stimulus-directed to non-stimulus-directed. It highlights the similarities across a broad range of phenomena, thereby illustrating the widespread generality of respondent conditioning. Many responses that are subject to respondent conditioning occur inside of the body. Many of these internal responses, from an evolutionary point of view, have to do with maintaining the internal functioning of the animal. Many responses within the body are concerned with homeostasis, or the maintenance of temperature and chemical substances in the body within the range necessary for optimal internal functioning. The secretion of gastric juices such as saliva is a standard example of internal responses maintaining internal functioning. By eliciting the secretion of gastric juices, stimuli paired with food prepare the organism for digestion. The process by which a neutral stimulus becomes aversive through pairing with an aversive stimulus is called aversive conditioning.
