Brief stimulus changes signaling extinction enhance resurgence

Resurgence is the return of a previously reinforced and extinguished target response when conditions worsen for an alternative response. Several studies examined resurgence when brief stimulus changes/instructions accompanied phase transitions in standard three-phase procedures, which confounded the effects of worsening with extinction and stimulus changes. Subsequent research found resurgence was greater when a 1-s stimulus change preceded both phase changes compared with groups experiencing more frequent or no stimulus changes. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether presenting identical versus different stimuli prior to both phase changes influenced resurgence in Experiment 1 and a stimulus only prior to extinction testing was sufficient to observe enhanced resurgence effects in Experiment 2. We found no differences in resurgence whether the brief stimulus changes (1) between phases were identical or different or (2) occurred before Phases 2 and 3 or only before Phase 3; however, resurgence was greater when preceding only Phase 3 with a stimulus change versus no stimuli between phases or a stimulus only before Phase 2. These findings suggest stimuli signaling transitions to extinction testing enhance resurgence effects. We discuss whether brief stimulus changes are functionally similar to contextual changes accompanying phases previously shown to produce renewal and enhance resurgence.