Reinforcement Extinction Research Articles

Behavioral Training for Increasing Preschool Children's Adherence With Positive Airway Pressure: A Preliminary Study

Behavioral training was implemented to increase adherence with positive airway pressure (PAP) in 4 preschool children. The training employed distraction, counterconditioning, graduated exposure, differential reinforcement, and escape extinction. A non-concurrent multiple baseline experimental design was used to demonstrate program effects. Initially, the children displayed distress and escape–avoidance behavior when PAP was attempted. With training, all 4 children tolerated PAP while sleeping for age appropriate durations. For the 3 children with home follow-up data, the parents maintained benefits. The results are discussed in relation to behavior principles, child health, and common barriers to PAP adherence.

The nonmaintenance of behavior by noncontingent reinforcement

The discontinuation of reinforcement in extinction has two components: the contingency between the response and its reinforcer is terminated, and reinforcers are no longer delivered. The latter is responsible for some side-effects of extinction. Noncontingent reinforcement terminates the contingency while reinforcers continue to be delivered. Some implications of this difference are considered in the context of introducing a companion experimental article by Katz & Catania that explores extinction, noncontingent reinforcement and delayed reinforcement procedures with and without the concurrent reinforcement of an alternative response. The effects of noncontingent reinforcement are typically transient and the long-term effectiveness of noncontingent reinforcement in maintaining behavior is typically nil and if it ever does occur it is at best weak. Because reinforcer deliveries are not discontinued, noncontingent reinforcement may have advantages over extinction in many applications aimed at reducing behavior that has been maintained by contingent reinforcement.

Occasional reinforced trials during extinction can slow the rate of rapid reacquisition

Two appetitive conditioning experiments with rats examined reacquisition after conditioned responding was eliminated by either extinction or by a partial reinforcement procedure in which reinforced trials were occasionally presented among many nonreinforced trials. In Experiment 1, reacquisition to a conditional stimulus (CS) that had been conditioned and extinguished was more rapid than acquisition in a group that had received no prior conditioning. However, the addition of occasional reinforced trials to extinction slowed this rapid reacquisition effect. Experiment 2 replicated the result and showed that a procedure in which the CS and the unconditional stimulus (US) were unpaired in extinction interfered even further with reacquisition. The results suggest that rapid reacquisition is ordinarily produced when reinforced trials provide a contextual cue that can renew responding by signaling other acquisition trials ( Ricker & Bouton, 1996). The effects of partial reinforcement in extinction are surprising from several theoretical perspectives and have useful clinical implications.

Role of Corticosterone in Extinction of an Appetitive Instrumental Response

Corticosteroids appear to be involved in a variety of cognitive processes. The present research examined their role during extinction of an appetitive instrumental response in rats. In the first experiment, a high negative correlation was documented between the magnitude of the corticosterone level evoked by removal of reinforcement and the number of behavioral responses given during the session. In the second experiment, administration of exogenous corticosterone decreased the number of behavioral responses occurring during the extinction session; dexa-methasone had no significant effect. It would appear possible that the behavioral effects reflect corticosterone mediated changes in neuronal activity within brain structures contributing to learning and memory processes. Thus, in appetitive instrumental conditioning, corticosterone levels are elevated by a removal of reinforcement (extinction) and may contribute to the suppression or decay of the previously reinforced behavioral response.

Effects of a response-reinforcer relation on elicited pecking

Three pigeons were exposed for 22 sessions to a variant of a multiple variable-time 1-min extinction reinforcement schedule in the presence of a white key. A 1.5-s stimulus change (red) preceded each 1-min component during which food was delivered and a 1.5-s stimulus change (green) preceded each extinction component. The variable-time 1-min schedule was then changed to a variable-interval 1-min schedule for several sessions and then returned to variable time 1-min. During the first exposure to noncontingent reinforcer delivery, two of the three birds pecked frequently during the 1.5-s red stimulus but not during the other components. The third bird did not keypeck. The addition of a response-reinforcer relation resulted in all three birds pecking during the red stimulus as well as during the white stimuli. Pecking rates were usually highest during red. Response rates during green remained low. The subsequent removal of the response contingency resulted in a decrease in responding during white, and for two of the three birds, a decrease in responding during the red stimulus. The results support an interpretation of signal key pecking in stimulus separation procedures as elicited key pecking controlled by the stimulus-reinforcer relation.

The Generalization of Parent Responding to Community Settings: The Effects of Instructions, Plus Feedback, and Self-management Training

This study examined the generalization effects of two parent training phases (instructions plus feedback and self-management training) on parents implementation of behavior modification skills in extra training settings in the community. Using a multiple baseline design across families two families were sequentially introduced to each training condition. Instructions plus feedback provided home-based training to the parents in both stimulus control techniques (instruction giving, prompting) and the use of consequences (reinforcement reprimands, extinction and time-out). Self-management training involved teaching parents to manage their own behavior in specific parenting situations. Training involved teaching parents self-monitoring, goal setting, and planning skills specific to their performance of parenting skills in a range of community settings.

Partial reinforcement acquisition and extinction as function of odor control.

3 groups of albino rats were run in a runway under the same schedule of reward and nonreward, magnitude of reward, N-length and intertrial interval but differed in terms of odor conditions. Theoretically all groups should have been equally resistant to extinction. The results showed that evacuating odors during acquisition and extinction increased goal speed and resistance to extinction. When odors were not exhausted or were intensified, Ss extinguished at a much faster rate. The study points to the importance of odor control when running Ss in an alley.

Pattern and Quality of Reinforcement in Extinction in Albino Rats

This experiment examined the effects of successive (3 or 1) nonrewards prior to a sucrose reward and the effects of successive (3 or 1) alfalfa rewards prior to a sucrose reward on resistance to extinction. Long runs of nonrewards or long runs of alfalfa rewards led to greater resistance to extinction than did short runs. Ss who experienced nonrewards and those who experienced alfalfa rewards were not substantially different from each other. The findings were discussed within Capaldi's sequential theory.

Two-choice probability learning: Test of a finite markov chain and linear operator model

Human subjects were trained in the noncontingent binary choice situation under one of two levels of event probability (π = .6, .8) and payoff (0c, 1c). These data were used to evaluate the ability of the Reinforcement-Extinction (R-E) Model and the Weak-Strong (W-S) Conditioning Model to describe marginal and first-order response-event dependencies throughout learning and second-order response-event dependencies and run curves during the last 100 trials. Both models described asymptotic statistics about equally well with largest discrepancies being in the fit-to-run curves. Generally, poorer preasymptotic fits were attributed to too rapid a rate of approach of the predicted statistics to their asymptotic values. Parameter estimates for both models varied with π and payoff throughout learning. From these estimates it was inferred that learning occurs on correct and incorrect trials; correct trials appeared more important in the R-E model while incorrect trials assumed major importance for the W-S model, especially prior to overshooting.

PARTIAL REINFORCEMENT EFFECT AND EXTINCTION AS A FUNCTION OF FRUSTRATION AND INTERFERING RESPONSES.

PARTIAL REINFORCEMENT EFFECT AND EXTINCTION AS A FUNCTION OF FRUSTRATION AND INTERFERING RESPONSES.