ABC: A psychological theory of anticipative behavioral control

Abstract

Almost all behavior is purposive or goal oriented. People behave, for example, in order to cross the street, to open a door, to ring a bell, to switch on a radio, to fill a cup with coffee, etc. Likewise, animals behave to attain various goals as for example to escape from a predator, to catch prey, to feed their offspring, etc. The ABC framework accords with the purposive character of almost all behavior by assuming that behavior is not determined by the current stimulation but by the desired or the 'to-be-produced' effects. For this to work, behavioral acts have to be connected to the effects they produce in such a way that anticipations of effects gain the power to address the behavior that brings them about (often called the ideo-motor principle). Moreover, if action-effect contingencies systematically depend on the situational context, the formed action-effect relations have to be contextualized. Accordingly, the ABC framework assumes the formation of representations that preserve information about which effects can be realized by which behavior under which conditions. In the present article we review some of the empirical evidence in favor of the ABC approach and discuss the structures by which sensory anticipations might be transformed into the motor patterns that move the body to bring the desired effects about. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.