Resurgence in a discrete‐trial procedure in rats

Fujimaki and team worked with lab rats in a small box. Each rat could press one of two levers. Pressing the first lever used to bring food, then it stopped. The rats learned to press a second lever for food instead.

Next the researchers stopped food for the second lever. They let each rat make only one press per trial. They counted how often the rats went back to the first, no-longer-paid lever. That return is called resurgence.

Every rat showed strong resurgence. When the new lever no longer paid off, the rats returned to pressing the first lever even though it still never gave food. The effect showed up early and stayed through the whole session.

Resurgence did not need free-access conditions. One press per trial was enough for the old response to bounce back.

Fuhrman et al. (2016) showed that careful schedule thinning during functional communication training can stop later resurgence in children. Fujimaki’s rats prove the basic effect still lurks if you simply halt reinforcement, giving a reason to use Fuhrman’s thinning tactic.

Hatton et al. (2005) also worked with rats and found that drugs can speed extinction after fixed-interval training. Fujimaki adds that, even without drugs, the extinguished response is ready to reappear when the alternative fails.

Barszcz et al. (2021) and Saini et al. (2015) cut stereotypy with response-interruption and redirection, another extinction-based method. Fujimaki’s clean discrete-trial set-up gives future researchers a simple way to test ways to stop resurgence before trying them with kids.

You now have lab proof that resurgence can hide inside tight, one-response-per-trial programs. If you run discrete-trial teaching, know that simply stopping reinforcement for a new skill can bring back the old problem behavior. Build in gradual thinning or alternate reinforcers before you pull the plug, just as Fuhrman et al. did with FCT.