Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA.
J Exp Anal Behav. 2024 Sep;122(2):139-157. doi: 10.1002/jeab.4206. Epub 2024 Aug 22.
Resurgence can be defined as increases in previously reinforced and subsequently extinguished target responding when conditions for an alternative response worsen. Worsening of alternative conditions, such as extinction, has been linked to relapse of clinically relevant behavior. Preclinical researchers have evaluated whether punishing target responses while differentially reinforcing an alternative response could reduce resurgence when conditions are worsened with extinction, with mixed results. In the present investigation, we systematically replicated this line of research with human participants recruited via crowdsourcing, using response cost as punishment. During Phase 1, we reinforced target responses with 100 points per delivery, exchangeable for money. During Phase 2, we reinforced alternative responses, discontinued point reinforcement for target responses, and parametrically manipulated across groups the magnitude of point loss (1, 100, 320, or 1,000 points) contingent on target responses. During Phase 3, we tested for resurgence by extinguishing target and alternative responses. Added punishment systematically decreased target responding during Phase 2 but did not influence resurgence during Phase 3. With a meta-analysis, we compared our findings with existing research examining a range of punishers and species. The results of the meta-analysis comport with the present findings, suggesting that the inclusion of punishment reduces target responding during DRA but, overall, has no systematic effects on resurgence.
复燃可以被定义为当替代反应的条件恶化时，先前被强化后又被消退的目标反应的增加。替代条件的恶化，如消退，与临床相关行为的复发有关。临床前研究人员已经评估了在替代反应被差异化强化的同时惩罚目标反应，是否可以减少在条件恶化的情况下复燃的可能性，结果喜忧参半。在本研究中，我们通过众包招募人类参与者，使用反应代价作为惩罚，系统地复制了这一研究思路。在第一阶段，我们用每一次传递的 100 分来强化目标反应，这些分数可以兑换成钱。在第二阶段，我们强化了替代反应，停止了对目标反应的分数强化，并根据目标反应在组间参数化地操纵分数损失的幅度（1、100、320 或 1000 分）。在第三阶段，我们通过消除目标和替代反应来测试复燃。增加惩罚在第二阶段系统地降低了目标反应，但在第三阶段没有影响复燃。通过元分析，我们将我们的发现与现有的研究进行了比较，这些研究检查了一系列的惩罚者和物种。元分析的结果与本研究的结果一致，表明在 DRA 中包括惩罚可以减少目标反应，但总体上对复燃没有系统影响。
