Responding Fails to Extinguish During Human-Laboratory Experiments of Resurgence

Abstract

Resurgence is observed when a previously extinguished behavior reemerges while a more recently reinforced behavior is extinguished. Resurgence is further defined as responding that is greater than an inactive control response that has never produced reinforcement. Recent studies of resurgence using neurotypical adults as participants in human-laboratory investigations have produced discrepant patterns of responding compared to nonhuman animal laboratory studies when comparing control response performance. Namely, human-laboratory investigations have produced no differences between target and control responding, and persistence of all response types across the resurgence-test phase. In the present study, we conducted two human-laboratory experiments to determine if these effects were a product of the history of reinforcement associated with the target response as well as the types of technology used in human-laboratory studies. For all participants, we found no differences in levels of resurgence and occurrence for the target and control response, respectively. Moreover, we observed persistence of all response types across the resurgence-test phase in a manner consistent with prior research. This finding was apparent even when the length of baseline (i.e., reinforcement for the target) was increased, when the length of extinction was increased, and when low-technology stimuli were used. We highlight the implications of this outcome in the context of recent human-laboratory studies that have used arbitrary responses to study resurgence, and discuss the possible role of verbal mediation in these investigations.