ABA renewal and spontaneous recovery of operant performance formerly eliminated by omission training

Abstract

Two experiments with humans explored the ABA renewal and spontaneous recovery of operant performance previously eliminated through a differential reinforcement-of-other-behavior (DRO). Participants played a videogame in which they acquired two operant responses in Phase 1. Then, all participants experienced an omission procedure for the elimination of Response 1 (R1), while Response 2 (R2) continued to be reinforced. For Experiment 1, one group received Phase 2 in a different context from the one in Phase 1, whereas the other group remained in the same context. Finally, both responses were tested. For Experiment 1, testing took place in the original context immediately after the last trial of Phase 2. For Experiment 2, one group returned 24 h later for the test phase, while the other group received the test immediately after the last trial of Phase 2. We found that changes in the temporal and physical contexts only affected the responses that received the omission training by showing both renewal (Experiment 1) and spontaneous recovery (Experiment 2) of R1. The present results extend findings previously reported with rats to humans. Moreover, our results support the proposal which states that contexts play a key role in modulating the reappearance of operant responses that had been suppressed by retroactive interference treatments.