This term is a psychological term which directly explains when a target behaviour is seen to come under the restriction control of certain irrelevant stimulus that are tagged to be antecedent. It sometimes forms a description of situations in which a behavior is triggered by the presence or absence of some stimulus. This is easily seen when a person loves to always eats when watching TV, then (in the operant conditioning use of the term) eating behavior is controlled by the stimulus of watching TV. Also some certain behaviors of lab animals are easily brought under control of such stimuli, and that is where the concept of stimulus control originated. Therefore, in this case, a lot of behavior is controlled by signals, which are antecedents to behavior, not consequences.
