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The evolution of operant behaviour from the coordination of two instances of respondent conditioning shown using the Model of Hierarchical Complexity Michael Lamport Commons Department of Psychiatry Harvard Medical School At Sensory Motor Order 1 in the Model of Hierarchical Complexity, organisms engage in only single actions at a time.?It includes simple respondent behavior and respondent conditioning. These actions are not coordinated with other actions.?However, there are coordinations of stimuli.?A reflex is a behavior that is characteristic of this order of complexity.?A reflex is a biologically-based system linking stimuli to responses.?At the circular Sensory Motor Order 2 two reflexive conditions from Order 1 are coordinated.?This new behavioral process is operant conditioning by which consequences change the likelihood of future behavior.?This occurs at the Circular Sensory Motor Order 2.?The first instance of respondent conditioning is the pairing of brain event with a behavior.?All behaviors are elicited by stimuli.?Some stimuli are internal to the organism.?Such brain events are firing of one or more neurons.?For any behavior to occur, it must be preceded by neural firing (a brain event).?The brain event that elicits the operant behavior becomes salient by preceding and predicting (being paired) the salient unconditioned reinforcing stimulus that follows it.?This brain event that elicits the operant response may now act as a “plan? The second instance of respondent conditioning is the pairing of the ?plan?with environmental stimuli.?Because the brain event “plan?is now salient, the second instance of respondent conditioning may successfully proceed.?These environmental stimuli now come to elicit these incipient “plans?