Contingency, and more particularly temporal contingency, has often figured in thinking about the nature of learning. However, it has never been formally defined in such a way as to make it a measure that can be applied to most animal learning protocols. We use elementary information theory to define contingency in such a way as to make it a measurable property of almost any conditioning protocol. We discuss how making it a measurable construct enables the exploration of the role of different contingencies in the acquisition and performance of classically and operantly conditioned behavior.
Gallistel, C.R., et al., Temporal contingency. Behav. Process. (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2013.08.012