Resurgence of behavior during extinction depends on previous rate of response

The effect of mindfulness on extinction and behavioral resurgence

“…Moreover, the results for the control group reflected the findings of resurgence reported by Reed and Morgan (2007) for rat subjects. During the extinction phase, the effects of the prior learning history influenced resurgence; that is, responding to the component previously associated with a VR schedule was higher than that to a component previously associated with a VI schedule, despite there being no difference in the rate of responding between these components at the end of an interpolated training phase.…”

“…However, since such behaviors also have significance for many clinically relevant behavioral patterns, such as depression, drug dependence, and externalizing behaviors (see, e.g., Bouton, 2002;Doughty, Reed, & Lattal, 2004;Reed & Clark, 2011;Williams et al, 2006), it has been thought important to develop experimental analogues of the effect in order to study the factors that impact resurgence more fully, and such experimental analogues are helpful in the present context of investigating the impact of manipulations such as mindfulness that are specifically designed to limit intrusions from previous learning into current performance (see Hayes et al, 1999;Kabat-Zinn, 2003). Reed and Morgan (2007) investigated whether resurgence of behavior during extinction depended on previously established rates of response (see also Doughty et al, 2004;Doughty, da Silva, & Lattal, 2007). In this within-subjects study, rats were trained on a multiple schedule comprising two different schedules of reinforcement that are known to produce two particular and different rates of responding: a variable ratio (VR) schedule, where reinforcement is related to the number of responses made and which produces higher rates of response, and a VI schedule, where only responses following the passage of time are reinforced and which is known to produce lower rates of response (see Dack, McHugh, & Reed, 2010, for a similar demonstration in humans).…”

“…1. There was an initial conditioning phase in which individuals were exposed to a multiple VR VI schedule as employed in previous studies of resurgence (Reed & Morgan, 2007). The second phase involved further conditioning (reconditioning) with a multiple FI FI schedule to bring the rates established in Phase 1 together, as previously used in resurgence studies (Reed & Morgan, 2007).…”

“…In Experiment 2, our aim was to exploit this methodology (Reed & Morgan, 2007) for human participants and to investigate whether mindfulness training would reduce this resurgence effect, as well as making the participants who had undergone this procedure more sensitive to the shift to the extinction contingency. In addition to the impact on sensitivity to extinction, as in Experiment 1, it has been suggested that the automaticity with which conditioned schedule performances are executed can be modified by means of a mindfulness intervention, whereby attention is brought to the present behavioral response (Didonna, 2009).…”

Effect on subsequent fixed-interval schedule performance of prior exposure to ratio and interval schedules of reinforcement

“…Subjects in Group RR received training according to a schedule that had a constant probability of reinforcement for every response emitted (e.g., on an RR-5 schedule, the probability of reinforcement for schedules were able to control for the rate of reinforcement in movement from one schedule to another, the effects of prior rate of reinforcement between groups (e.g., the history VR group and the control group) were not equated. There is considerable debate in the resurgence literature concerning the relative importance of the rate of response or reinforcement in determining such behavioral history effects (see Doughty et al, 2004;Reed & Morgan, 2007). In establishing the parameters necessary for such history effects, this would appear to be an important variable to study.…”