Resurgence Following Traditional and Interdependent Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior

Resurgence of goal-directed actions and habits

This study investigated how goal-directed and habitual behaviors recover after extinction within the context of the resurgence effect, a form of relapse induced by the removal or worsening of alternative reinforcement. Rats were trained to press a target lever with one reinforcer (O1) for either minimal (4) or extended (16) sessions. An extinction test after the completion of O1 devaluation confirmed that minimal and extended training formed goal-directed and habitual behaviors, respectively. Then, pressing an alternative lever was reinforced with a second reinforcer (O2) while the target response was placed on extinction. When O2 was discontinued, the minimally trained target response resurged with goal-directed status as in the extinction test. However, the extinguished habitual behavior in the extensively trained rats did not recover as a habit but instead with goal-directed status, possibly due to the context specificity of habits or the introduction of a new response-reinforcer contingency. The critical finding that reinforcer devaluation consistently led to less resurgence regardless of the amount of acquisition training provides a clinical implication that coupling differential-reinforcement-of-alternative-behavior (DRA) treatments with the devaluation of the associated reinforcer of problematic behavior could effectively diminish its recurrence.

Examining resurgence in rats following expanded-operant treatments

Resurgence of previously reinforced behavior represents a challenge to otherwise successful interventions based on differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA). Expanded-operant treatments seek to increase the number of functional alternative behaviors through DRA, thereby potentially mitigating resurgence. However, the few studies that have directly examined these methods as a tool for resurgence mitigation have provided limited and unclear results. Thus, the present experiments were designed to investigate the effect of expanded-operant DRA methods on resurgence of previously reinforced behavior using rat subjects. In two experiments, following a baseline phase in which a target response was trained, groups of rats experienced concurrent (i.e., five simultaneous alternative responses), serial (i.e., five sequentially available alternative responses), or single DRA interventions arranging similar rates of alternative reinforcement in order to examine potential differences in resurgence. Both experiments showed that neither serial nor concurrent DRA expanded-operant treatments reduced resurgence compared with single DRA regardless of whether stimuli associated with previously reinforced alternative responses were removed (Experiment 1) or remained present (Experiment 2) for the serial-DRA group. Further, a primacy effect in resurgence was obtained for the serial-DRA group in both experiments. Overall, these results suggest that expanded-operant treatments may not help to reduce resurgence.

Resurgence of destructive behavior following differential rates of alternative reinforcement

Behavioral momentum theory (BMT) suggests that resurgence of destructive behavior may be at least partly determined by the rate of alternative reinforcement, with lean schedules of reinforcement producing less resurgence than dense schedules. Findings from basic and translational studies have been mixed, and the effects of alternative reinforcement rate on resurgence remain unclear. In the current study, we conducted a within-subject evaluation of resurgence during extinction with four children following functional communication training using dense and lean (BMT-informed) schedules of alternative reinforcement. We observed no reliable differences in resurgence across the dense and lean conditions. We discuss implications of these findings in relation to future research using quantitative analyses to evaluate the relative effects of alternative reinforcement rate and other BMT-based strategies for mitigating resurgence in applied settings.

Conducting Translational Research in the Context of Patient Care

Although much has been written on the importance of translational research for bridging the continuum of basic science to clinical practice, few authors have described how such work can be carried out practically when working with patient populations in the context of ongoing clinical service delivery, where the priorities for patient care can sometimes conflict with the methods and goals of translational research. In this article, we explore some of the considerations for conducting this type of work while balancing clinical responsibilities that ensure high-quality patient care. We also discuss strategies we have found to jointly facilitate translational research and improve routine, clinical service delivery. A primary goal of this article is to encourage others working in applied settings to contribute to the increasingly important role that translational research plays in our science and practice by helping to better characterize and potentially lessen or remove barriers that may have impeded such investigations in the past.