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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 2, 2026

Three Laboratory Procedures for Assessing Different Manifestations of Impulsivity in Rats

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Published on: March 17, 2019

Evaluating resurgence procedures in a human operant laboratory.

Hypatia A Bolívar¹, David J Cox¹, Molly A Barlow¹

¹University of Florida, Department of Psychology, United States.

Behavioural Processes

|May 11, 2017

Summary

Behavioral resurgence, the return of extinguished behavior, is influenced by extinction procedures. This study found that an inactive control response and contextual cues may be key factors in human resurgence research.

Keywords:

Free operant Human Operant conditioning Relapse Resurgence

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Published on: February 6, 2014

Area of Science:

Behavioral psychology
Learning and conditioning
Human behavior research

Background:

Behavioral resurgence, the reappearance of extinguished behavior, is a significant phenomenon in behavioral psychology.
Understanding resurgence is crucial for both fundamental research and practical applications, such as in clinical settings.
Previous research in nonhuman animals often uses an inactive control response to isolate resurgence from general extinction effects, a practice less common in human studies.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the conditions influencing behavioral resurgence in humans.
To extend previous research by examining modified procedures, including the use of an inactive control response and varying contextual cues.
To assess the replicability and utility of methods used in nonhuman animal resurgence studies for human participants.

Main Methods:

A free-operant task lasting less than one hour was employed.
Four distinct conditions were tested, manipulating the number of response options and the presentation of associated signals.
An inactive control response was included to differentiate resurgence from extinction-induced variability.

Main Results:

Behavioral resurgence was observed in only one of the four tested conditions.
The results suggest that the presence of an inactive control response and specific contextual cues may play a role in eliciting resurgence in humans.
The findings indicate that modifications to experimental procedures can significantly impact the observation of resurgence.

Conclusions:

The utility of incorporating an inactive control response in human resurgence research warrants further investigation.
Contextual cues appear to be influential factors in human behavioral resurgence.
Future research should further explore these variables to enhance the comparability and replication of human and nonhuman animal studies on resurgence.