Evaluating the combined effects of renewal and response-dependent reinstatement

Renewal is a form of treatment relapse that occurs due to a change in context but in the absence of a change in contingencies. Recent prevalence data suggest that renewal may commonly occur in clinical settings, threatening the durability of treatments for decreasing problem behavior. Unfortunately, instances of renewal may also coincide with treatment integrity errors of commission in which the treatment implementer accidentally reinforces the problem behavior. Unplanned reinforcer deliveries for the problem behavior following successful treatment may result in a different form of relapse called response-dependent reinstatement. Little is known about the combined effects of renewal and response-dependent reinstatement. The current study compared the effects of renewal alone with the combined effects of renewal plus response-dependent reinstatement in two experiments. We conducted Experiment 1 in a basic laboratory with rats and Experiment 2 in a translational format with college students who engaged with a task on a touchscreen tablet device. Overall, our results suggest that relapse was worse during combined tests for renewal plus response-dependent reinstatement relative to renewal alone. We discuss the implications of our findings with respect to the treatment of problem behavior.