RESURGENCE OF INFANT CAREGIVING RESPONSES

Two experiments were conducted to identify the conditions likely to produce resurgence among adult human participants. The preparation was a simulated caregiving context, wherein a recorded infant cry sounded and was terminated contingent upon targeted caregiving responses. Results of Experiment 1 demonstrated resurgence with human participants in this negative reinforcement preparation. Results of Experiment 2 showed that responses with a longer history of reinforcement showed a stronger resurgence effect relative to responses with a shorter and more recent history of reinforcement. These results show that the resurgence phenomenon occurs across populations and types of reinforcers. Additionally, results indicate that length of reinforcement history is a variable that may affect the magnitude of resurgence. Key words: extinction, negative reinforcement, resurgence, humans _______________________________________________________________________________ Resurgence, the reemergence of a previous-ly (but not currently) reinforced response when a subsequently reinforced response is placed on extinction, is understudied relative to other extinction-related phenomena (e.g., bursts, emotional behavior, spontaneous re-covery; Lerman & Iwata, 1996). Yet, as Lievin