Correction to Schepers and Bouton (2015)

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Psychology
• Animal Learning and Cognition

Background:

• Resurgence is the return of an extinguished behavior when a new behavior also stops being reinforced.
• Understanding resurgence is key to explaining behavior recovery after extinction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how the timing of reinforcement for an alternative behavior affects the resurgence of an original instrumental behavior.
• To compare the effectiveness of forward thinning and reverse thinning of reinforcement schedules on reducing resurgence.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments were conducted with rat subjects.
• Researchers manipulated the reinforcement schedules for an alternative behavior during the extinction of an initial instrumental behavior.
• Thinning procedures (forward and reverse) and alternating reinforcement/extinction sessions were employed.

Main Results:

• Both forward and reverse thinning of reinforcement weakened resurgence compared to continuous reinforcement.
• Forward thinning was more effective than reverse thinning in reducing the resurgence effect.
• Alternating reinforcement and extinction sessions for the alternative behavior completely eliminated resurgence.

Conclusions:

• Reinforcer delivery during extinction may act as a contextual cue for extinction, and its removal can lead to behavior renewal.
• The findings support a contextual stimulus account of resurgence over response disruption accounts.
• Manipulating reinforcement schedules during extinction offers a potential method for controlling behavior resurgence.