Régulation temporelle du comportement et anticipation

The temporal regulation of the subject's own behavior, as studied with operant conditioning techniques, is a particularly precise example of behavioral anticipation. The study of collateral behavior, the analysis of the effects of physical restraint of movement and of the periodical structure of some contingencies of reinforcement converge to suggest that an active inhibitory mechanism underlies these regulations. The efficient involvement of this mechanism beyond certain temporal limits would be restricted in the absence of compensatory factors counterbalancing the inhibitory overload. Unpublished experimental data supports this hypothesis.