The concept of metacontingency has been used to understand cultural selection and how organisms behave in groups. Despite constant refinements to its definition, the term has still been used to describe either a unit of analysis, a procedure, or even one or more processes. Based mainly on experimental studies, this paper clarifies those elements and proposes terms to deal with them. The culturant is the unit of analysis typically employed in experiments on this matter, and it is fundamental to differentiate descriptive culturants (interlocking behavioral contingencies defined by their environmental effect, i.e., their aggregate product) and functional culturants (classes of interlocking behavioral contingencies under control of cultural consequences). We argue that the term metacontingency should refer to the procedure of arranging a conditional relation between a culturant and a cultural consequence. The processes of cultural selection can be defined based on the effect of environmental events (e.g., cultural consequences) on characteristics (e.g., frequency) of the culturant and can be directly described as changes in culturants (e.g., culturant increase and culturant decrease). This terminology can improve conceptual precision in the area of cultural selection and facilitate clear communication in interpretative or quasi-experimental studies.

中文翻译：

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区分文化选择中的分析单元、程序和过程：元偶然性术语注释

元偶然性的概念已被用于理解文化选择和有机体在群体中的行为方式。尽管对其定义进行了不断改进，但该术语仍用于描述分析单元、程序，甚至一个或多个过程。本文主要基于实验研究，阐明了这些要素并提出了处理它们的术语。培养者是在这个问题的实验中通常使用的分析单位，它是区分描述性培养者（由其环境影响定义的互锁行为意外事件，即它们的总产品）和功能性培养人（受控制的互锁行为意外事件类别）的基础文化后果）。我们认为，元偶然性一词应该指的是在文化者和文化后果之间安排条件关系的程序。文化选择的过程可以基于环境事件（例如，文化后果）对养殖者特征（例如，频率）的影响来定义，并且可以直接描述为养殖者的变化（例如，养殖者增加和养殖者减少）。该术语可以提高文化选择领域的概念精确度，并促进解释性或准实验研究中的清晰交流。频率），可以直接描述为培养物的变化（例如，培养物增加和培养物减少）。该术语可以提高文化选择领域的概念精确度，并促进解释性或准实验研究中的清晰交流。频率），可以直接描述为培养物的变化（例如，培养物增加和培养物减少）。该术语可以提高文化选择领域的概念精确度，并促进解释性或准实验研究中的清晰交流。