Re‐exposure to reinforcement in Context A during treatment in Context B reduces ABC renewal

Rodriguez-Seijas et al. (2020) asked a simple question. Can quick visits back to the old reward room while you are doing extinction in a new room stop the behavior from roaring back in a third, never-seen place?

They ran a single-case lab study. Participants earned rewards in Context A. Then the team moved to Context B and stopped the rewards. While still in Context B they let the person pop back into Context A for short reward bursts. Later everyone went to brand-new Context C to see if the old behavior returned.

The group that got those quick reward bursts in Context A showed far less ABC renewal in Context C. Plain talk: the behavior did not bounce back as hard when they later hit a new place.

Extinction-only in Context B left the door open for big renewal. Mixing in brief re-exposure to reinforcement slammed that door shut.

Liddon et al. (2018) first mapped the ABC renewal hill. They showed the relapse peak is real and can hit the same person twice. Rodriguez-Seijas et al. (2020) now give us a shovel to level that hill.

Craig et al. (2019) looked almost identical on paper: rats shuttled between reward and no-reward rooms daily. That earlier study found more renewal, not less. The twist is timing. The 2019 rats ended on reinforcement days, so the behavior stayed strong. The 2020 humans ended most sessions in extinction, so the behavior weakened. Same shuttle, different last stop, opposite outcome.

King et al. (2025) push the idea into kids with autism and ID. They used noncontingent rewards to cut resurgence. Craig’s lab trick of revisiting the reward context may merge nicely with that clinical tactic.

You now have an easy lever: let the client taste the old reward setting for a minute or two while you press on with extinction elsewhere. This brief visit can vaccinate against relapse when the client later faces brand-new places like a new classroom, aunt’s house, or community job site. Build it into your relapse-prevention plan and track renewal probes in each fresh context.