Multiple control responses and resurgence of human behavior

Area of Science:

• Behavioral psychology
• Human operant conditioning
• Response resurgence research

Background:

• Extinguished behavior can reoccur (resurgence) under specific conditions, such as extinction of an alternative response or worsening reinforcement.
• Previous studies on human resurgence in laboratory settings, using procedures common in nonhuman research, have yielded inconsistent results.
• Human responding in resurgence paradigms has not consistently differed from control responses, unlike findings in nonhuman subjects.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if the number of control responses influences the resurgence of previously extinguished human behavior.
• To examine whether increasing control options mitigates target response resurgence in verbally competent humans.
• To compare human resurgence patterns with those observed in nonhuman animals.

Main Methods:

• Twenty participants were randomly assigned to conditions with either two or four control responses.
• Participants engaged in a task where an alternative response encountered extinction.
• Responding to the target behavior and control options was measured during extinction of the alternative response.

Main Results:

• Increasing the number of control responses did not significantly reduce overall responding to control options.
• Aggregated responding to control options was comparable to the rates of the target response.
• A majority of participants showed a preference for one specific control response when the alternative response underwent extinction.

Conclusions:

• Findings suggest that human responding during resurgence procedures differs from nonhuman responding, even with multiple control options.
• The study supports previous research highlighting discrepancies between human and nonhuman behavior in resurgence paradigms.
• Variability in human resurgence may be influenced by factors such as shorter experimental session durations and the role of verbal behavior.