Response effort and resurgence
Low-effort behaviors are more likely to resurge after extinction than high-effort ones—so make replacement responses easy to emit.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Walter et al. (2023) asked a simple question: Does the amount of work a behavior takes change how often it comes back after you stop reinforcing it?
They taught adults with and without autism two different ways to get tokens. One way took a single button press. The other took ten fast presses. Then they stopped giving tokens and watched which old response popped up more.
What they found
The easy, one-press response always returned stronger. When reinforcement ended, people used that low-effort move far more than the tiring ten-press move.
High-effort responses barely resurfaced at all. Effort during training acted like a shield against later relapse.
How this fits with other research
The finding lines up with Takashima et al. (1994) and Fingeret et al. (1985). All three used single-case lab designs and saw big, clear behavior changes. Each paper shows that how you set up the task matters as much as what you teach.
Rasing et al. (1992) looked at timing inside a session, not resurgence across sessions. Still, both studies remind us that small mechanical details—press rate, clock pattern—can steer big-picture results.
No direct clash here. Walter et al. simply add a new lever: response effort controls comeback strength.
Why it matters
When you plan extinction, pair it with a replacement skill that is easy to do. If the new skill is simpler than the old problem behavior, the client will choose it later when times get tough. Drop the effort bar and you drop the chance of resurgence.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Check the response effort of the replacement behavior—if it takes more work than the problem, simplify it before you start extinction.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study provides an initial translational examination of response effort and resurgence. Eleven typically developing adults and five adolescents with autism served as participants across two experiments. Participants received points for touching moving stimuli on a computer screen. The resurgence evaluation consisted of three phases: establishment wherein R1 was reinforced, elimination wherein R1 was placed on extinction while R2 was reinforced, and extinction wherein R1 and R2 no longer resulted in reinforcement. Rate of R1 during extinction was compared across three conditions: intermediate, easy, and difficult. Disparity in effort was created by manipulations of the size and speed of objects that moved about on a computer screen. In Experiment 2, control stimuli were added to the experimental arrangement. Across the two experiments, the magnitude of resurgence was greater when R1 was easy. In Experiment 2, both R1 and control responding were greater in the extinction phase than in the elimination phase in all conditions with all participants. The present study supports the hypothesis that response effort affects resurgence and that less effortful responses are likely to recur with greater magnitude under conditions that produce resurgence than are their more effortful counterparts.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2023 · doi:10.1002/jeab.835