Resurgence, behavioral contrast, and stimuli correlated with the absence of reinforcement
Resurgence is the reappearance of a previously reinforced, then extinguished behavior when reinforcement for a newer alternative response is worsened or discontinued.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Miles et al. (2025) asked a simple question. If you give a cue that means "no reinforcement here," does it cut down on two kinds of relapse: resurgence and contrast?
They ran a lab study with single-case design. First they reinforced a behavior, then they stopped reinforcement, and finally they watched for both resurgence and contrast. Sometimes a stimulus signaled the extinction period; sometimes it did not.
What they found
When the extinction cue was present, both resurgence and contrast dropped. The cue acted like a shield against relapse.
The authors say this supports the idea that resurgence and contrast share the same environmental controls.
How this fits with other research
Galizio et al. (2020) showed that variability itself can resurge during extinction in humans. Miles adds a tool—extinction cues—to tame that resurgence.
Snapper et al. (1969) found that clear S+ vs S- discrimination training sharpens inhibitory control. Miles extends this by showing the same cues blunt later relapse, not just current responding.
HOFFMAN et al. (1963) saw that extinguished suppression keeps fading with each test. Miles offers a practical fix: add a stimulus that marks the no-reinforcement period and the fade slows.
Why it matters
If you run extinction procedures, drop in a clear signal for "no reinforcement now." A red card, a buzzer, or a simple "not now" phrase can cut both resurgence and contrast. You get cleaner data and faster stability for your client.
What Resurgence Means in ABA
Resurgence is a form of relapse: a target behavior that was reinforced, then extinguished, returns when a more recently reinforced alternative behavior stops paying off. It shows that extinguished behavior is suppressed, not erased.
The classic three-phase arrangement is train the target, extinguish the target while reinforcing an alternative, then worsen or remove reinforcement for the alternative. The target behavior reappears in that third phase.
A Resurgence Example and Its Link to Behavioral Contrast
A practical example: a child's tantrum is placed on extinction while functional communication is reinforced. If the communication response later goes unreinforced, tantrums can resurge. This is why FCT schedule thinning must be gradual.
This experiment compared resurgence with behavioral contrast in pigeons and found that a stimulus signaling extinction reduced both effects. The shared environmental control suggests resurgence and contrast are functionally related relapse phenomena.
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Pick one extinction target, add a distinctive stimulus during the no-reinforcement period, and track if the old behavior pops back up less often.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Behavioral contrast and resurgence emerge following worsening of conditions of alternative reinforcement. In this experiment, the effects of stimuli correlated with nonreinforcement during extinction were compared with respect to their effects in generating resurgence and contrast within individual pigeons. Four pigeons were exposed to a two-key concurrent schedule in which a target response arranged a variable-interval (VI) 60-s schedule and an alternative response key arranged a two-component multiple VI 60-s VI 60-s schedule. In the resurgence preparation, target responding was extinguished after training before extinguishing the alternative. In the contrast preparation, both components of the multiple schedule were associated with extinction, whereas target responding was still reinforced. In both, one of the two multiple schedule stimuli was replaced by a darkened keylight. When the key associated with the alternative component was on during extinction, there was less resurgence and the magnitude of contrast was less than when the key was dark. The results replicated earlier findings of the effects of the presence or absence of stimuli on resurgence and contrast but under conditions allowing direct comparisons within individual subjects. The results both suggest a functional similarity between behavioral phenomena labeled resurgence and contrast and invite a search for other similarities.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2025 · doi:10.1002/jeab.70068