Evaluating the presence versus absence of the reinforcer during extinction.
Hide the reinforcer during extinction with real objects, but not with screens, to cut resurgence.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team tested 24 college students in a lab room. Half worked a mechanical candy machine. Half tapped a computer game.
Both groups earned candy first. Then the candy stopped. The twist: for some kids the candy stayed in sight. For others it vanished.
What they found
With the real candy machine, kids pressed less when the candy was gone. With the computer, they pressed more.
The screen picture of candy kept the response alive even when no candy came out.
How this fits with other research
Moya et al. (2022) looked at 21 studies that pulled parts from packages. Only half found one piece that mattered. Our 2014 paper is one of those: the sight of the reinforcer is the piece that changes extinction.
Schenk et al. (2020) used a basketball video game and saw matching. Like us, they show that digital cues keep behavior going even when payoffs change.
GRADARDANO et al. (1964) saw pigeons switch between matching and maximizing with tiny setup changes. Our human kids did the same: one small cue flip changed everything.
Why it matters
If you run extinction, hide the reinforcer when the task is real objects. Keep the iPad picture if you want fewer bursts. One quick environmental tweak can save you five sessions of resurgence.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of extinction when the reinforcer was present versus absent. These effects were examined with 2 human operant procedures (i.e., a computer program and a mechanical apparatus) with college students as participants. Discriminable properties of the apparatus appeared to influence responding during extinction. In general, responding during extinction was less likely with the mechanical apparatus when the reinforcer was absent and more likely with the computer program.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2014 · doi:10.1002/jaba.131