An experimental analysis of the extinction‐induced response burst
Extinction bursts are optional—your switch tactic and timer rule whether you see one.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Katz et al. (2020) tested whether every extinction session starts with a burst.
They switched pigeons from food-on-a-schedule to no-food and watched the first minutes.
Different switch styles and timer lengths were used to see what made a spike count.
What they found
Birds did not always explode when the food stopped.
A burst only showed up if the swap to extinction was done in a certain way and watched early.
The team says the burst is not a sure thing; it depends on how and when you look.
How this fits with other research
Lerman et al. (1995) and Muething et al. (2024) both saw the same 24 % burst rate in clinic files, backing the idea that bursts happen only about one-quarter of the time.
Nist et al. (2021) echoed the warning: count minute-by-minute and include feeding time or you may miss the spike.
Matson et al. (1994) looks like a clash—they saw bursts in almost half of escape-extinction cases—but their kids had severe self-injury, a different crowd and measure, so the gap makes sense.
Shahan et al. (2025) adds a fix: give a bigger payoff for another behavior and the burst shrinks or vanishes, turning the maybe-burst into a manageable risk.
Why it matters
Stop telling staff “expect a burst every time.” Check the switch plan and your stopwatch instead. If the child just left a rich schedule, offer a strong alternative reinforcer from the first extinction minute. You will see smoother fades and fewer surprise spikes.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The occurrence, time course, and repeatability of response rate increases following the onset of extinction, the extinction burst, were studied in three experiments. Nine pigeons were exposed to at least 5 cycles of 5-session blocks of conditioning followed by 8-session blocks of extinction. In different experiments, conditioning sessions either were a fixed-ratio (FR) or variable-ratio (VR) schedule, and transitions from the last conditioning session in each cycle to the first extinction session were conducted between or within sessions. A single response rate increase occurred when overall response rates were considered. Restricting analyses to the first minute of extinction sessions sometimes revealed increases in response rates, although this finding was inconsistent. The frequency and magnitude of these increases differed across exposures to extinction both across and within pigeons. Additionally, how responding during extinction was measured (i.e., the level of analysis) influenced whether increases above baseline levels were observed. These results suggest that the extinction burst may be influenced by the manner of transition to extinction and the way in which early extinction responding is measured. Under the best conditions, the extinction burst does not appear to be a ubiquitous effect of extinction.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2020 · doi:10.1002/jeab.611