The effects of discriminative stimuli on combined relapse: A preliminary human-operant investigation

Decreases in alternative reinforcement and context changes are events that can lead to resurgence and renewal, respectively. Those stimulus conditions are often investigated in isolation within three-phase arrangements. Recently, studies have examined whether combined decreases in alternative reinforcement and context changes in Phase 3 produce a relapse magnitude different from the summed effects of each change in isolation. In the present study, we examined whether discriminative stimuli paired with target response extinction in Phase 2 would mitigate resurgence when both stimulus changes occurred simultaneously in Phase 3. We used a within-subjects design and exposed 11 typically developing adults to four 3-phase arrangements in a randomized sequence: ABB- (resurgence in isolation), ABA+ (renewal in isolation), ABA- (resurgence and renewal), and ABA-S^∆. Results indicated that the combined decrease in alternative reinforcement and context change in Phase 3 had a superadditive effect in five participants and an additive effect in four participants and that the discriminative stimulus significantly attenuated these interaction effects for most participants. These results are further discussed in terms of stimulus control tactics for mitigating resurgence produced by contingency and context and changes and future research on the topic of combined relapse broadly.