Early extinction effects following intermittent reinforcement: Little evidence of extinction bursts
Extinction bursts are uncommon after intermittent reinforcement, so expect a quiet fade rather than a fireworks show.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lattal and colleagues ran three lab experiments with pigeons and rats.
The animals first earned food on intermittent schedules. Then the food stopped.
The team watched for any quick jump in pecking or lever pressing right after extinction began.
What they found
Big extinction bursts were rare. A few birds or rats spiked once, but the rise was small and brief.
Most animals simply slowed down without a dramatic surge.
How this fits with other research
Duker et al. (1996) saw the same thing in children with developmental disabilities. Problem behavior dropped just as fast after intermittent reinforcement and showed no real burst.
Together the two studies bridge lab and clinic: the burst we warn teachers about may be the exception, not the rule.
Saini et al. (2020) remind us that relapse can still happen later through renewal when the room changes, so keep planning for context shifts even if Day 1 looks calm.
Why it matters
You can stop telling staff to expect a sure-fire extinction burst. Instead, watch the first few minutes, reinforce calm alternatives, and move on. If behavior does spike, treat it as data, not failure. This calmer outlook reduces caregiver stress and keeps extinction procedures in place long enough to work.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The occurrence of extinction bursts-transient increases in response rate in excess of those observed in baseline during the period immediately following discontinuation of reinforcement of a response-was examined. In Experiment 1, key pecking of pigeons was reinforced according to a multiple schedule in which a variable-ratio schedule alternated with an interval schedule in which the reinforcers were yoked to the preceding variable-ratio component. In Experiments 2 and 3, rats were screened such that the lever-press response rates of different rats maintained by variable-interval schedules were either relatively high or relatively low. Following these baseline conditions, in Experiments 1 and 2 responding was extinguished by eliminating the food reinforcer and in Experiment 3 by removing the response-reinforcer dependency. Responses immediately following extinction implementation were examined. Response increases relative to baseline during the first 20 min of a 324.75-min extinction session (Experiment 1) or during the first 30-min extinction session (Experiments 2 and 3) were rare and unsystematic. The results (a) reinforce earlier meta-analyses concluding that extinction bursts may be a less ubiquitous early effect of extinction than has been suggested and (b) invite further experimentation to establish their generality as a function of preceding reinforcement conditions.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2020 · doi:10.1002/jeab.616