Stimuli previously associated with reinforcement mitigate resurgence
Brief stimuli previously linked with food can slightly reduce resurgence after extinction.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with neurotypical adults in a lab.
Each person pressed a lever for food pellets.
Later the food stopped.
During this extinction test the researchers played brief lights and clicks.
These cues had been paired with food earlier.
The question: do the food-correlated cues soften resurgence?
What they found
Resurgence still happened, but the cues shaved it down a little.
Lever presses dropped slightly when the stimuli were delivered.
The effect was small yet reliable.
Food-correlated stimuli alone can act like weak reinforcers during extinction.
How this fits with other research
Macht (1971) first showed that food-paired brief stimuli keep response rates high between real reinforcers.
Craig et al. now flip that idea: the same stimuli can also calm resurgence when food is gone.
Pliskoff et al. (1972) found that cues tied to reinforcer availability bias choice.
Their work hints why the cues in Craig’s study worked: they still signal “food happened here,” even if none comes.
Together the three studies trace a line: conditioned reinforcers can both drive and dampen responding, depending on when you present them.
Why it matters
You can’t hand clients food every minute, but you can keep conditioned reinforcers alive.
Therapy clicks, token drops, or praise beeps may double as tiny shields against resurgence.
Next time you thin reinforcement, try sprinkling those cues non-contingently.
The drop in resurgence may be modest, yet every bit helps when you’re trying to maintain hard-won skills.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Resurgence refers to the recurrence of an extinguished target behavior following subsequent suspension of alternative reinforcement. Delivery of reinforcers during extinction of alternative behavior has been shown to mitigate resurgence. The present experiment aimed to determine whether delivering stimuli associated with reinforcers during resurgence testing similarly mitigates resurgence. Three groups of rats pressed target levers for food according to variable-interval 15-s schedules during Phase 1. In Phase 2, lever pressing was extinguished, and an alternative nose-poke response produced alternative reinforcement according to a variable-interval 15-s schedule. Food reinforcement was always associated with illumination of the food aperture and an audible click from the pellet dispenser during Phases 1 and 2. Phase 3 treatments differed between groups. For one group, nose poking continued to produce food and food-correlated stimuli. Both of these consequences were suspended for a second group. Finally, nose poking produced food-correlated stimuli but not food for a third group. Target-lever pressing resurged in the group that received no consequences and in the group that received only food-correlated stimuli for nose poking. Resurgence, however, was smaller for the group that received food-correlated stimuli than for the group that received no consequences for nose poking. Target-lever pressing did not increase between phases in the group that continued to receive food and associated stimuli. Thus, delivery of stimuli associated with food reinforcement after suspension of food reduced but did not eliminate resurgence of extinguished lever pressing. These findings contribute to potential methodologies for preventing relapse of extinguished problem behavior in clinical settings.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2017 · doi:10.1002/jeab.278