Describing response-event relations: Babel revisited.

The terms used to describe the relations among the three components of contingencies of reinforcement and punishment include many with multiple meanings and imprecise denotation. In particular, usage of the term "contingency" and its variants and acceptance of unsubstantiated functional, rather than procedural, descriptions of response-event relations are especially troublesome in the behavior analysis literature. Clarity seems best served by restricting the term "contingency" to its generic usage and by utilizing procedural descriptions of response-event relations.