Multiple control responses and resurgence of human behavior

Basic‐laboratory assessments of renewal may inform clinical efforts to maintain reduction of severe destructive behavior when clients transition between contexts. The contextual changes arranged during standard renewal procedures, however, do not necessarily align with those that clients experience during outpatient therapy. More specifically, clients transition between clinical (associated with extinction for target behavior) and home/community (associated with reinforcement for target behavior) contexts during outpatient treatment. Standard renewal assessments do not incorporate these contextual alternations during treatment. The present experiment aimed to directly compare renewal of rats' lever pressing following a standard (“sequential”) ABA renewal procedure (i.e., baseline in Context A, extinction in Context B, renewal test in Context A) and a “nonsequential” renewal assessment wherein treatment consisted of daily alternation between Context A (associated with reinforcement for lever pressing) and Context B (associated with extinction). Lever pressing renewed to a greater extent for rats in the Nonsequential group than for rats in the Sequential group, suggesting the contextual changes that clients experience during outpatient treatment for severe destructive behavior may be a variable that is important to consider in translational research on renewal. Potential implications of these findings for basic and clinical research on renewal are discussed.

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Further evaluation of a nonsequential approach to studying operant renewal

Craig

Sullivan

Roane

2019

“…Related to the above analysis, Cox et al (2018) observed that control responding in human-operant resurgence experiments might be due in part to rule governance and the sequential nature of resurgence experiments. Their argument stemmed from the fact that the participant is presented with three possible response options and responding to each option is reinforced sequentially during the training and alternative-reinforcement phases of the resurgence procedure.…”

Section: Presence Of Control Respondingmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…If, however, the difference between target and control responding is small, or control responding exceeds target responding, then variables other than the prior reinforcement history are implicated in determining the latter. Indeed, the amount of human control responding during the resurgence test equaled or exceeded target responding in several of the experiments (e.g., Bolívar, Cox, Barlow, & Dallery, 2017;Bruzek, Thompson, & Peters, 2009;Cox, Bolívar, & Barlow, 2018;Sweeney & Shahan, 2016). Before considering the interpretation of the presence or absence of control responding, findings from experiments in which a control response was used should be considered to provide a concrete context for evaluating its use and interpretation.…”

Section: The Logic Of the Control Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The last column shows that, unlike the veritable absence of control responding in most nonhuman animal resurgence experiments, substantial control responding was far more the norm in these experiments with human participants. Indeed, the amount of human control responding during the resurgence test equaled or exceeded target responding in several of the experiments (e.g., Bolívar, Cox, Barlow, & Dallery, 2017;Bruzek, Thompson, & Peters, 2009;Cox, Bolívar, & Barlow, 2018;Sweeney & Shahan, 2016). Bruzek et al (2009), for example, assessed the resurgence of infant-caregiving responses by students.…”

Section: The Logic Of the Control Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The control response in assessing resurgence: Useful or compromised tool?

Lattal

Oliver

2019

Resurgence experiments sometimes include an operandum on which a history of reinforcement has not been experimentally established. The purpose of this control operandum is to rule out a generalized increase in responding when the alternative response is extinguished as being the cause of the resurgent target response. A review of the results of experiments conducted with both nonhumans and humans in which a control operandum was included shows that control-operandum responding is more common in the latter and almost nonexistent in the former. Both the presence and absence of responding on the control operandum, however, are subject to multiple interpretations thereby rendering it a compromised tool. Alternatives to using a control operandum to rule out extinction induction as the basis for resurgence include a preresurgence test control procedure and a differential resurgence procedure.

“…When a previously reinforced response is placed on extinction, other forms of responding can emerge in addition to the resurgence of target responding, often termed extinction‐induced variability (e.g., Cox et al, 2019; see Neuringer & Jensen, 2013; see also Lattal and Oliver, 2020, for a discussion on the use of this term). Assessing the variability accompanying extinction contingencies along with resurgence provides potential insights into behavioral processes contributing to behavioral treatments (see Ho et al, 2018; Liggett et al, 2018; A. Galizio et al, 2020, for discussions).…”

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confidence: 99%

Examining effects of training duration on humans' resurgence and variability using a novel touchscreen procedure

Ritchey

Mizutani

Kuroda

et al. 2021

Resurgence occurs when a previously reinforced and then extinguished target response increases due to reducing/eliminating an alternative source of reinforcement or punishing an alternative response. We evaluated whether duration of reinforcement history for a target response (1) affects the degree to which resurgence is observed in humans and (2) produces different gradients of response generalization around target responding during extinction testing. We arranged a novel touchscreen interface in which university students could swipe a 3D soccer ball to spin any direction. In Phase 1, the first direction swiped became the target and produced points exchangeable for money for 3 or 1 min across 2 groups. The first swipe was recorded but had no programmed consequence in a third group. In Phase 2, swipes 180‐degrees from the target resulted in points for 3 min in all groups. Point deliveries ceased for 2 min to test for resurgence in Phase 3. Target responses resurged during testing to a relatively greater extent with longer Phase‐1 training but gradients of response generalization did not differ among groups. These findings extend prior research on the role of training duration on resurgence. We discuss methodological and conceptual issues surrounding the assessment of response generalization in resurgence.