The impact of an extinction reminder on AAB renewal is sensitive to the level of association with extinction
Keep your extinction signal present on every single trial; partial cues fail to block renewal.
01Research in Context
What this study did
College students pressed keys for points on a computer.
First, points came every time they pressed in one room.
Next, the points stopped in a second room.
Some students saw a red light on every extinction trial.
Others saw the red light on only 3 out of 4 trials.
Later, everyone moved to a third room.
The team counted how much pressing returned.
What they found
The red light cut renewal only when it showed up every single extinction trial.
When the light was missing on 25 percent of trials, renewal bounced back to normal.
Partial pairing was as weak as no cue at all.
How this fits with other research
Silva et al. (2025) also worked with ABA renewal.
They found that fading the treatment room into the new room beat the red-light cue alone.
Together the papers say: pair the cue fully, then still plan a slow context shift.
Cengher et al. (2020) used extinction differently.
They let problem behavior drop, then reinforced new words that popped out.
Their clinical trick works because extinction is now shown to be safe when the cue is strong.
Why it matters
If you use a colored card, a buzzer, or a phrase to signal extinction, keep it on every trial.
Missing even one pairing lets renewal sneak back.
After full extinction, fade the setting slowly instead of jumping straight to the natural environment.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
An experiment using a predictive learning task with college students evaluated the impact of a stimulus associated with extinction on an AAB renewal design. Four groups of participants learned a specific relationship between two cues (X and Y) and two outcomes (O1 and O2) in Context A during the first phase. Subsequently, both cues were subjected to extinction in the same Context A. During the Test, extinction was in effect for both cues; one group experienced it in Context A (AAA), while the other three groups were tested in a second Context B. We observed a reduction in the AAB renewal effect when participants received a stimulus associated with extinction (AAB*), but not when testing involved presenting a new stimulus (AAB). However, the reductive effect of the extinction reminder was not observed when the stimulus was presented only during the 75% of the extinction trials (AAB*75). These findings suggest that, under certain circumstances, the level of association of the extinction reminder with extinction might affect its efficacy in reducing response recovery.
Learning & Behavior, 2025 · doi:10.3758/s13420-025-00683-2