Resurgence in humans: Reducing relapse by increasing generalization between treatment and testing

Area of Science:

• Behavioral psychology
• Cognitive neuroscience
• Animal behavior

Background:

• Resurgence is the return of an extinguished behavior when a concurrently reinforced behavior is itself extinguished.
• This phenomenon is relevant to understanding relapse in clinical and applied settings.
• While well-documented in animals, the mechanisms controlling human resurgence remain unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether human resurgence is controlled by similar processes as in animals.
• To test if two established methods for reducing animal resurgence also reduce human resurgence.

Main Methods:

• Participants learned two operant responses (R1, R2) reinforced by different outcomes (O1, O2).
• R1 was extinguished while R2 was reinforced.
• R2 was then extinguished, and resurgence of R1 was measured.
• Two experiments tested interventions: periodic extinction of R2 during its reinforcement phase, and noncontingent presentation of O2 during R2 extinction.

Main Results:

• Periodic extinction of the replacement response (R2) during its reinforcement phase attenuated resurgence of the original response (R1).
• Noncontingent presentation of the replacement reinforcer (O2) during the extinction of R2 prevented R1 resurgence.
• These findings suggest contextual change and renewal may underlie human resurgence.

Conclusions:

• Human resurgence appears to be controlled by mechanisms similar to those identified in animal models.
• The results provide initial evidence for common underlying processes in human and animal resurgence.
• This research offers insights into potential therapeutic strategies for managing behavioral relapse.