An assessment of the role of handling cues in "spontaneous recovery" after extinction.
Spontaneous recovery depends on prior discrimination training, not just the presence of old cues.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with pigeons in a lab. They wanted to know if handling cues could bring back an extinguished key-peck response.
Some birds first learned to tell the difference between two handling routines. Other birds skipped this step. Then all birds had their pecking put on extinction. Later, the researchers checked if the handling cues alone caused spontaneous recovery.
What they found
Handling cues only triggered more pecking in birds that had earlier discrimination training. Birds without that training showed no extra pecking.
This means the cues themselves were not magic. The birds needed to have learned what the cues meant before the cues could revive the old response.
How this fits with other research
Tager-Flusberg (1981) showed pigeons can use brief signals to predict reinforcement versus extinction. The 1986 study adds that the bird must first be taught what those signals mean.
Mello (1966) found punishment effects also need prior discrimination training. The same rule now applies to spontaneous recovery after extinction.
Fontes et al. (2018) later showed resurgence can occur when an alternative response is punished. Together, these papers tell a clear story: stimulus control only works after the learner has been taught the difference.
Why it matters
Before you blame "spontaneous recovery" for a behavior coming back, check if the client ever learned to tell the difference between the old cue and the new one. If not, the cue alone will not revive the behavior. Teach the discrimination first, then expect stimulus control to work.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Three experiments examined the assertion that presession handling cues that accompany training with reinforcement might account for spontaneous recovery when they reoccur following extinction. In Experiment 1, after extensive training on a variable-interval schedule, key pecking in pigeons was extinguished following either normal or distinctively different handling and transportational cues. Those cues resulted in enhanced spontaneous recovery 24 hr later when normal cues were reinstated. In Experiment 2, however, subjects tested following the normal handling cues showed no more spontaneous recovery than did subjects that spent the entire extinction-test interval in the experimental chambers and thus were tested without handling cues altogether. In Experiment 3, a group whose test for recovery began 10 min after being placed in the chambers yielded as much spontaneous recovery as did a group tested normally. Furthermore, a group for which extinction began at mid-session and for which handling therefore could not be a discriminative cue for extinction showed no more spontaneous recovery than did the other two groups. Handling cues thus contributed to spontaneous recovery only after explicit discrimination training, as provided in Experiment 1.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1986 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1986.46-305