Behavioural Processes 141 (2017) 85–91

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Behavioural Processes
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/behavproc

Review

On defining resurgence MARK

⁎,1 2 3
Kennon A. Lattal , Carlos R.X. Cançado , James E. Cook , Stephanie L. Kincaid,
Tyler D. Nighbor, Anthony C. Oliver
West Virginia University, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: A review of different investigators’ definitions of resurgence revealed several common features: First,
Resurgence characteristics of the resurgent, or target, response, such as its transience; magnitude; time course within and
Recurrent behavior across sessions; and relativity to a baseline response rate are not mentioned. Second, the target response is
Condition worsening described as being established through its reinforcement in the first, or Training, phase of a resurgence
Extinction
procedure. Third, the target response must be eliminated as an alternative response is reinforced in the second,
Definition
Operant behavior
Alternative Reinforcement, phase of a resurgence procedure. Fourth, the alternative response must be
Reinforcement history extinguished during the Resurgence Test phase. Fifth, none of the definitions allude to any contribution of
Stimulus variables stimulus variables to resurgence. When reconsidered in light of contemporary research germane to these
features, none of the reviewed definitions sufficiently reflect important variables in the generation and
assessment of resurgence. The review concludes with a proposed working definition that takes into account
contemporary research involving all of the aforementioned factors.

1. The renaissance of resurgence resurgence is grounded in earlier conceptualizations, formalized in

First systematically investigated by Carey in 1951 and thereafter in
the 1980s by Epstein and Skinner (1980) (Epstein, 1983; 1985; see
Epstein 2015 for a review of this early research), behavioral resurgence
has undergone something of a renaissance beginning in the early years
of the 21st century. Much of the interest has been generated in the
arenas of translational research and application, where resurgence has
been proposed as, among other things, a model for the recurrence of
substance abuse following treatment removal (e.g., Craig et al., 2016;
Marchant et al., 2013; Podlesnik et al., 2006) and, more generally, of
the return of problem behavior on the discontinuation of an ameliora-
tive therapeutic program (e.g., Lattal and Peter Pipkin, 2009; Lit and
Mace, 2015). Breaking ranks with the classical model of movement
from basic research to translation to application (see Neef and Peterson,
2003), like many other behavioral phenomena, since around the turn of
the century contemporary basic research on resurgence has proceeded
largely in parallel with, rather than preceding, translation and applica-
tion. Perhaps this is because once the basic phenomenon was estab-
lished its implications were both immediately apparent and compelling.
Much of both contemporary research and application related to
definitions that are both unnecessarily restrictive and mute with respect
to the most recent research on the measurement and controlling
variables of resurgence. This review begins with several definitions of
resurgence proffered by researchers and practitioners. It then juxta-
poses elements of the common features of these definitions with recent
research germane to those features, and concludes with a suggested
revised working definition.
2. Defining resurgence
Many investigators of the resurgence of operant behavior have
begun their analysis with a definition. A representative sample of these
definitions is as follows:
− “Resurgence, the reemergence of a previously (but not currently)
reinforced response when a subsequently reinforced response is placed
on extinction …” (Bruzek et al., 2009, p. 327).
− “Regression: The reappearance of previously extinguished
behavior during the extinction of more recently reinforced behavior
(sometimes referred to as extinction-induced resurgence)” (Catania,
1991). [Note: Carey (1951) also labeled the phenomenon regression.]

⁎
Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506-6040, United States.
E-mail address: klattal@wvu.edu (K.A. Lattal).
1
Now at Universidade de Brasília, Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro, 70. 910-900, Brasília-DF, Brazil.
2
Now at University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS, 39216 USA. Carlos Cançado was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship (PNPD-CAPES) during the writing of this
article.
3
Now at Department of Psychology, Rollins College, Winter Park, FL 32789 USA.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2017.04.018
Received 1 December 2016; Received in revised form 26 April 2017; Accepted 27 April 2017
Available online 06 May 2017
0376-6357/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
K.A. Lattal et al.
−“Resurgence is the term used here to refer to this occurrence of a
previously reinforced behavior … when a more recently reinforced
behaviour … is undergoing extinction …” (Cleland et al., 2000, p. 118;
see also Cleland et al., 2001).
− “A simple principle of potentially wide application may be stated
as follows: When, in a given situation, recently reinforced behavior is
no longer reinforced, behaviors that were previously reinforced under
similar circumstances tend to recur” (Epstein, 1983).
− “Resurgence is the recovery of a previously reinforced and
extinguished response during extinction of a second previously re-
inforced response” (Hoffman and Falcomata, 2014).
− “Resurgence occurs when a previously extinguished response
recovers following the extinction of some alternative response”
(Lambert et al., 2016, p. 283).
− “Resurgence is said to occur when a previously learned response
recurs following a hiatus from that response, during which time some
other response first is reinforced and thereafter extinguished” (Lattal
and St. Peter Pipkin, 2009, p. 254).
− “Resurgence refers to recovery of an extinguished operant
response after discontinuation of reinforcement of an alternative
response” (Marchant et al., 2013, p. 678).
− “Resurgence is characterized by the reappearance of an extin-
guished operant response when an alternative behavior introduced
during extinction is subsequently placed on extinction” (Podlesnik and
Shahan, 2009).
− “Extinguished operant behavior can return or ‘resurge’ when a
response that has replaced it also is extinguished” (Trask et al., 2015, p.
187).
These definitions, along with others, which were omitted simply
because they repeat the same points, share several elements. First,
measurement characteristics of the resurgent (hereafter, target) re-
sponse, such as its magnitude and time course within and across
sessions and its relation to some behavioral baseline are not mentioned
in any of the definitions. Second, the target response must be
established by its reinforcement, which is accomplished in the first,
or Training (T), phase of a resurgence procedure. Third, the target
response must be at least nominally extinguished as an alternative
response is reinforced in the second, Alternative Reinforcement (AR),
phase of a resurgence procedure. (In some experiments, this phase is
broken into two phases, with functional extinction of the first-trained
response occurring in the T phase followed by reinforcement of the
alternative response in the second; cf. Cleland et al., 2000; Epstein,
1983.) Fourth, the alternative response must be extinguished during the
Resurgence Test (RT) phase. Fifth, none of the definitions allude to the
role of stimulus variables in resurgence. The question of how each of
these shared definitional features map onto what currently is known
about resurgence is considered in the sections that follow.
3. Measuring resurgence
Definitions typically start with measurement (e.g., Bridgman, 1927;
Kaplan, 1964/1998; Kaplan, 1964; Plutchik, 1968). Most of the
definitions in the preceding section indicate the measurement of
discrete responses (as in “a response” or “a behaviour”). A few, however
indicate simply “behavior” as the measure. It has been suggested that a
good bit of operant behavior, such as reading, conversing, eating, or
sexual activity, does not lend itself as readily to discrete frequency
counts as it does to time allocated to such activities (e.g., Baum, 2012;
Premack, 1965; see also Brownstein and Pliskoff, 1968). But, does
operant behavior measured as time allocation resurge similarly to
operant behavior measured as discrete responses? Cançado et al. (in
press) measured resurgence as time allocated to one of two concur-
rently available variable-time reinforcement schedules. In the T phase,
one VT schedule delivered response-independent reinforcers with a
probability of 0.75 and the other with a probability of 0.25. Each peck
on a changeover key shifted the discriminative stimuli and schedules in
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Behavioural Processes 141 (2017) 85–91
effect. The discriminative stimuli associated with the richer and leaner
schedules were reversed in the AR phase, with a reversal of the time
allocated to the schedules and their associated stimuli. In the RT,
reinforcement was eliminated and time allocation transiently shifted in
favor of the stimulus associated with the richer schedule in the first
phase. Bruzek et al. (2009) reported similar findings with college
students. When time spent on activities designed to quiet the crying of a
simulated infant no longer quelled its crying, the students spent their
time engaged in activities that, in the T phase, had that quieting effect.
The most direct measure of resurgence is an absolute one: How
many responses occur or how much time is allocated to an alternative
during the RT phase? This widely used index of resurgence can be
misleading in the absence of a baseline context. For that reason, most
tests of resurgence either informally or formally take into account the
rate of the target response relative to its occurrence in other phases of
the resurgence experiment. For example, using a single discrete
response, the usual procedure is to compare the rate of the target
response to its rate of occurrence in the terminal sessions of the
immediately preceding AR condition. Resurgence is said to occur only
when the target response rate is relatively higher than its rate in those
terminal sessions.
Other relative measures of resurgence can be useful when the effects
of two or more independent variables or values of independent
variables on resurgence are directly compared using either multiple
(e.g., Doughty et al., 2007) or concurrent schedules (for further
discussion of measuring resurgence, see Cançado et al., 2016). da
Silva et al. (2008, Experiment 1b), for example, used a three-phase
concurrent resurgence procedure to examine the effects of reinforce-
ment frequency of the target response in the T phase on subsequent
resurgence. Pigeons first were trained on a concurrent variable-interval
(VI) 1-min VI 6-min schedule. In the AR phase, key-peck reinforcement
was discontinued (extinction) and reinforcers were delivered according
to a single VI 3-min schedule for responding on a third response key.
During the RT phase, more responding occurred on the key previously
associated with the schedule delivering more frequent reinforcement;
however, when responding on the keys formerly associated with the VI
1-min and VI 6-min schedules was normalized with respect to the
response rates on either key in the T phase, the relative resurgence on
the two keys was about the same.
Two other, less well investigated, dimensions of the measurement of
resurgence important in its definition are temporal and local ones.
Sidman (1960) observed that “the completion of a transitory phase is
marked by a return to the same behavior that would have been
observed if the transitory effect had never taken place” (p. 311), and
so it is with resurgence. When the RT is extended beyond a single
session, the time course of resurgence sometimes, but not always, is one
of the target behavior increasing from near zero at the beginning of the
RT phase to peak as the alternative response dissipates across this
phase. The target behavior then dissipates to zero as the RT phase
continues (presumably because such behavior is not reinforced). A
common, but not uniform finding, is that resurgence often reaches its
apogee not in the first session, but in subsequent ones (depending, of
course, on such things as session duration and frequency). Basing
assessments of resurgence on single sessions therefore may be mislead-
ing in terms of whether it occurred and the extent of such occurrence.
Little is known at this point about variables controlling either the time
course or qualitative character of resurgence. Session length undoubt-
edly has an effect, but whether, and, if so how, these aspects of
resurgence change as a function of variables in either the training or
alternative reinforcement phases is under-investigated (see Podlesnik
and Kelley, 2014; for an assessment of how stimulus variables affect the
pattern of resurgence across sessions in the RT phase). In some reports
of resurgence, its transitory nature has been ignored by using a single
RT-phase session. Even more problematic is that in group designs the
highly variable resurgence effect often is averaged across several
subjects, obfuscating the variability of its time course.
K.A. Lattal et al. Behavioural Processes 141 (2017) 85–91

Fig. 1. Cumulative target responses of a rat during the first three sessions of an RT phase.
Each hash mark on the x-axis represents 100 s.

Even within a session, a report of resurgence as an average of

responding over the session duration might potentially mask within-
session changes in resurgence. A more molecular analysis of resurgent Fig. 2. Absolute response rates across successive 5-interval blocks on the target key in a
behavior through cumulative records can provide a clearer picture of within-session repeated resurgence experiment conducted by Cook and Lattal. Individual
the development and denouement of resurgence in real time, both sessions are shown on the z-axis with more recent sessions towards the front. The leftmost
bar in each session is the absolute response rate during the last 5-interval block of the AR
within and across sessions. As an example, the data in Fig. 1, from an
Phase. The remaining bars are successive 5-interval blocks of the RT Phase.
unpublished experiment, described below, conducted by Oliver et al.
(2017) in which in the RT phase the number of pellets delivered on a VI
response.
schedule for the alternative response was reduced from four to one,
Keys, one labeled the alternative response, and the other a sham
illustrate the development and time course of resurgent responding
(i.e., control) key on which responses were never reinforced (see below)
during the first three sessions of an RT phase (see also Lieving and
was near zero. In the AR phase, reinforcement of the target response
Lattal, 2003, Fig. 4). During the first session, resurgence occurred later
was discontinued, and responses on a second, alternative, key were
relative.
reinforced according to an FI 30-s schedule until at least 10 reinforcers
to its appearance in the two subsequent sessions. In the second and
were collected and until responding on the FI key and the sham key
third sessions, however, the target response occurred earlier in the
were near zero. In the RT phase, reinforcement of the alternative
session but, especially in the third session, dissipated in magnitude
response was discontinued. The RT phase continued until responding
rather quickly as each session progressed. Notably absent was any
ceased on all three response keys, at which point the session termi-
marked burst of responses (i.e., any spontaneous-recovery like effect) at
nated. The data in Fig. 2 show the results across successive sessions for
the onset of either the second or third sessions. Qualitative differences
one of the four pigeons used in the experiment (each with results
in target response occurrence within and across sessions may reveal
similar to the one shown here). Target-key responding reliably in-
heretofore uninvestigated properties of resurgence, offering the possi-
creased (resurgence), relative to its occurrence in the AR phase, during
bility of not only a more nuanced understanding of the variables that
the RT phase during most sessions. Of note is the gradually declining
affect resurgence and the different ways in which resurgence may be
magnitude (represented by the height of the bars) and occurrence
manifest, but also, particularly in applications, other ways of more
(represented by the number of bars) of the resurgence effect across
effectively intervening to attenuate or potentiate resurgence.
sessions. A decline in magnitude within sessions also occurred, but
responding often peaked in the second or later block, rather than the
4. Transitory resurgence
first RT-phase block. This procedure produced resurgence reliably both
within and across sessions, but what factors account for the occurrence
A critical feature of resurgence absent from all of the definitions
of resurgence in some but not all sessions and the change in the
cited at the beginning of this review is the transience noted above. This
resurgence effect across replications remains a question for future
transience presents a methodological challenge in analyzing the con-
investigation.
trolling variables of resurgence, which in turn allow refinement of its
Repeated within-session resurgence tests might be developed with
definition. Replicating a resurgence effect requires that the different
any procedure where repeated exposure to extinction occurs within
phases of the resurgence procedure be repeated with the same subjects,
individual sessions and the extinction effect can be repeated reliably
a process requiring multiple sessions at each phase. Even then,
within and across successive sessions. In a progressive-ratio (PR)
however, subsequent iterations of the procedure may affect the quantity
schedule, for example, each session remains in effect until extinction
and quality of resurgence (although Lieving and Lattal, 2003, Experi-
occurs (i.e., a break point of a predetermined time period without a
ment 2, found no systematic differences in resurgence in four pigeons
response). Using a variation of the Cook and Lattal procedure outlined
across two direct replications of the three-phase resurgence procedure).
above, within a single session a target response might be reinforced
Nonetheless, a procedure allowing the repeated generation of resur-
according to some schedule of reinforcement in the T phase. This could
gence successively across each of several sessions would obviate the
be followed by extinction of the target response and reinforcement of an
need for this cumbersome, time-consuming across-session repetition of
alternative response according to a progressive-ratio schedule, the
each phase of the resurgence procedure.
response requirement of which would increment until a break point is
Cook and Lattal (2017) developed such a within-session repeated
reached, with resurgence occurring at some point during the ratio
resurgence procedure by dividing each of 30 successive individual
progression (see also Jarmolowicz and Lattal, 2014). As another
sessions into three-phase resurgence procedures. In the T phase, target-
example, Bai et al. (2017) adapted the free-operant psychophysical
key pecking was reinforced on a fixed-interval (FI) 30-s schedule until
procedure to study resurgence within-sessions by embedding probe
at least 10 reinforcers were collected and responding on two other

87
K.A. Lattal et al.
trials consisting of extended local periods of extinction among trials
that typically reinforced a target followed by an alternative response.
Restricting the definition of resurgence to transient observations of its
appearance and then disappearance provides only a narrow picture of
the phenomenon, and hence its definition. Expanding the resurgence
paradigm by attempting to create “steadier states” of resurgence opens
possibilities not only for expanding the definition, but also its implica-
tions of resurgence for reinforcement theory and practice.
5. Target-response reinforcement history as a defining feature of
resurgence
In each of the definitions cited in the Defining resurgence section
above, the target response is described as having been established in the
organism’s repertoire at some previous time, although the conditions
defining “established” and “some previous time” are not specified. The
relation between the conditions of establishment of the target response
and its subsequent resurgence is largely unexplored (but cf. Lieving and
Lattal, 2003, Experiment 1). Nonetheless, the broad requirement that
the target response must have been established in the past through
reinforcement precludes including simply any increase in behavior, as
in, for example, an increase in general activity, in the definition of
resurgence. Also excluded from these definitions are increases in
specific responses that have not previously been reinforced. Stated
another way, a response has to have a history of reinforcement before it
can be subject to resurgence.
One way of affirming that the previous reinforcement history of a
specific target response is critical in the later appearance of resurgence
has been to include a control or sham operandum throughout the
experiment on which responding is never reinforced (see Epstein, 1983;
for an example). Responding on the sham operandum during the
resurgence test is minimal relative to that observed on the target
operandum, which is taken as evidence of the necessity of prior training
of the target response. Both a strength and a limitation of this
interpretation, however, is that, unlike the target response, there is
no history of reinforcement of responding on the sham operandum.
Does, then, the absence of responding on this sham operandum reflect
the absence of the history of responding associated with the resurgence
operandum? Or, in lay terms, does it reflect a simple failure of the
operandum as a salient feature of the environment, no different, for
example, than many other static features of the environment bearing no
particular relation to reinforcement? da Silva et al. (2008, Experiments
1a & 1b) addressed this question using the concurrent resurgence
procedure noted above. In Experiment 1a pecking on either of two
side keys was autoshaped (Brown and Jenkins, 1968) to provide a
minimal history of responding on them. In the next, AR, phase
responding on a third key was reinforced according to a VI 1-min
schedule. In the subsequent RT, responding on the center key was
extinguished and virtually no pecks occurred on either side key,
suggesting that any general increase in activity induced by the
extinction of responding on the third key was not manifest as respond-
ing on the side keys. In Experiment 1b, using the same pigeons, a
conventional three-phase resurgence procedure was effected as de-
scribed in the Measuring resurgence section above, with the result that
now resurgence occurred on both side keys in the RT phase. These
results in combination with those of their Experiment 1a suggest the
importance of a prior history of reinforcement for the resurgence of
responding.
6. Extinction of the target response as a defining feature of
resurgence
Although a response has to be established before it can be
eliminated, is it necessary that the target response be extinguished
before it can be resurged, as each of the definitions in the Defining
resurgence section state? Mechner and Jones (2015) omitted this facet of
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Behavioural Processes 141 (2017) 85–91
resurgence in their definition of resurgence as the “reappearance of
behavior that occurred earlier in the individual’s history but not
recently, without restoration of the conditions under which the earlier
behavior occurred” (p. 63). Their definition is unique relative to the
others cited previously in that it does not specify extinction, elimina-
tion, or suppression of the target response, but rather only that it not be
present (reflected by the term “reappearance,” which also implies its
current absence) at the time of the resurgence test. (In Mechner &
Jones’s definition, “not recently” remains undefined, too.)
In many, perhaps most, instances the “extinction” of the target
response in the AR phase is procedural in that reinforcement of that
response is eliminated, but it is functional only to the extent that the
rate of the target response is near-zero. Whether the response actually is
eliminated remains a subject of debate (e.g., Leitenberg et al., 1975).
There are two procedures used to study resurgence, in which the target
response in the AR phase may be considered “eliminated” and not just
nominally so. One is when the target response is reduced to near zero
before the alternative response is reinforced, as in the four-phase
resurgence procedure described above (cf. Epstein, 1983; Lieving and
Lattal, 2003). The other is when a DRO schedule is used in the AR
phase, as was done by da Silva et al. (2008, Experiments 2 & 3). Under a
DRO schedule, the target response cannot be reinforced, thus the target
response must be functionally eliminated to the point that a pause in
responding is sufficiently long that the DRO-scheduled reinforcer
occurs. Either of these two procedures to explicitly eliminate the target
response results in its subsequent recurrence in the RT phase. However,
research comparing resurgence generated using either of these proce-
dures may yield resurgence differing qualitatively and quantitatively
from one another (cf. Doughty et al., 2007).
7. Extinction of the alternative response as a defining feature of
resurgence
All of the definitions in the section on Defining resurgence note that
resurgence occurs when the alternative response is extinguished. But is
such extinction really necessary for generating resurgence? The answer
suggested by several recent experiments is “no.” Lieving and Lattal
(2003, Experiment 4) reported resurgence when, in the resurgence test,
rather than extinguishing the alternative response, the reinforcement
schedule associate with responding in the alternative reinforcement
condition was changed from the VI 30-s schedule that was in effect in
the AR phase to a VI 6-min schedule in the RT phase. The resurgence
effect under the latter condition occurred in 2 of 3 pigeons, and the
effect was weaker than that obtained when, in the RT phase, the
alternative response was extinguished. At least some resurgence has
been found in our laboratory when the conditions of reinforcement of
the alternative response are “worsened” in other ways than reductions
in reinforcement rate. Resurgence occurred reliably, for example, when
the number of food pellets delivered to rats following lever-press
responses was reduced from four in the AR phase to one in the RT
phase (see also Craig et al., 2017, Experiment 2). Results of the first RT
session for one rat in this experiment are shown in Fig. 3.
In a related experiment with pigeons, however, when the duration
of access to a food reinforcer was reduced from 6 s in the AR phase to
1 s in the RT phase, resurgence occurred in only four of seven pigeons,
suggesting that magnitude reductions as an inducer of resurgence may
depend on the method by which the magnitude is reduced.
Nighbor et al. (2017b) investigated how delayed reinforcement
affects resurgence (see also Jarmolowicz and Lattal, 2014). Changing
the immediate reinforcement of the alternative response in the AR
phase to reinforcement delivered after a 60-s (blackout) signaled delay
in the RT phase yielded resurgence of the target response in each of six
pigeons exposed to this procedure. Reinforcement rates between the
immediate and delayed reinforcement conditions differed by less than
one reinforcer per minute. The important finding for the present
discussion, however, is that, as in Lieving and Lattal’s Experiment 3
K.A. Lattal et al.
Fig. 3. Cumulative lever press responses on the vertical and horizontal levers across
successive seconds of the first session of the RT phase. At the start of this session, the
number of pellets per reinforcer for responding on the vertical lever was reduced from 4
pellets to 1. Responses to the horizontal lever, the target response, were not reinforced.
Vertical dotted lines indicate reinforcers delivered following responses on the vertical
lever. The gradual development of resurgence across the session is shown, as is a tendency
for bursts of horizontal lever presses to occur following reinforcement of vertical lever
presses. Each hash mark on the x-axis represents 100 s.
and the reduction in the number of food pellets delivered to rats from
the AR to the RT phase, in this experiment reinforcement conditions
worsened, either by adding delays or decreasing reinforcement rate,
and the result was resurgence.
All of the findings discussed thus far in this section suggest that
resurgence results when the reinforcement conditions are worsened
during the transition from the AR to RT phases, that is, by introducing
extinction, reducing reinforcement rate, decreasing reinforcer magni-
tude, or adding delays to reinforcement. Oliver et al. (2017) examined
whether resurgence also might occur when reinforcement rate is not
reduced between the AR and RT phases. Following establishment of a
target keypeck response, that response was extinguished in the AR
phase as a keypeck to an alternative operandum was reinforced
according to a VI schedule. In the RT phase, extinction remained in
effect for the target response but, instead of extinguishing the alter-
native response, when reinforcement became available under the VI
schedule, a unique stimulus (keylight color) appeared and remained on
until a response produced the reinforcer. Under these conditions,
alternative-response rates dropped precipitously, but the rate of
reinforcement remained unchanged from the AR phase. Despite the
constant reinforcement rate between the AR and RT phases, resurgence
occurred in each of the four pigeons exposed to the procedure.
Although technically there was no worsening of the reinforcement
conditions between the AR and RT phases, it could be argued that the
signal rendered the remainder of the VI schedule and its associated
stimulus a period of extinction. These results nonetheless stand in
contrast to the assertion in most definitions of resurgence that removing
reinforcement for the alternative response is necessary for its occur-
rence.
Taken together, the fact that reductions in reinforcement frequency
and magnitude, and increases in delays all yield at least some
resurgence suggest that definitions attributing resurgence to the
extinction of the alternative response are unnecessarily narrow and fail
to capture the breadth of the resurgence effect. Rather, it appears, as
Lattal and Wacker (2015) earlier suggested (see also Epstein, 1985;
Cleland et al., 2001) that resurgence can result whenever the alter-
native conditions of reinforcement are worsened in the RT phase
relative to those in the AR phase.
Two other issues germane to the worsening of conditions as a
precipitator of resurgence also warrant comment. One is defining
“worsening,” which, admittedly is a vague term. A reasonable candi-
date for defining “worsening” is any reinforcement condition not
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Behavioural Processes 141 (2017) 85–91
preferred relative to its alternative in a choice situation. The other
issue is that response rates generally vary directly with reinforcement
rate and reinforcement magnitude and inversely with delay. Thus,
manipulating these reinforcement parameters also changes response
rates. In one experiment, da Silva et al. (2008, Experiment 3) arranged
concurrent reinforcement of key pecking of pigeons under higher or
lower reinforcement rates. Schedule contingencies were such that
response rate on the two keys was approximately equal despite the
different reinforcement rates. Resurgence in the subsequent RT phase
was similar between keys, suggesting that resurgence is “better
predicted by the rate at which responding previously occurred … than
[by] the rate at which … responding was reinforced (da Silva et al.,
2008). Their findings in combination with the research reviewed in this
section suggest that the relation between response rate per se and
resurgence merits further experimental analysis.
8. Stimulus conditions and resurgence
None of the resurgence definitions reviewed above mention the role
of stimuli in its occurrence. Stimulus control nonetheless is involved in
resurgence (e.g., King and Hayes, 2016; Podlesnik and Kelley, 2014).
Bouton and colleagues (e.g., Winterbauer and Bouton, 2010; Bouton
and Trask, 2015) have suggested that the conditions in effect in the
different phases of the resurgence procedure might be construed as
different contexts (i.e., stimuli) evoking the resurgent response in the
RT phase of a resurgence procedure. Although the contextual-change
theory of recurrence is parsimonious and broadly encompassing, it has
its fair share of criticisms (Lattal and Wacker, 2015; McConnell and
Miller, 2014). Lattal and Wacker (2015), for example, observed that
…if one institutes a nominal ABC renewal procedure, but fails to
obtain renewal in the C condition, does one conclude that such renewal
does not occur or that the C condition did not really constitute a context
change? If the latter, then a C condition exists only if renewal occurs,
making renewal both the definition and the cause of the recurrence. (p.
4).
Aside from these more general considerations, the ‘arranged exter-
oceptive’ stimuli in most experiments on resurgence remain fixed
during each of the phases, which may account for the absence of
allusion to stimulus conditions in the definitions cited above. Thus, for
example, if a red keylight is associated with the alternative operandum
in the T phase, that same red keylight remains in effect on this
operandum in both the AR and RT phases. Using a concurrent
resurgence procedure (cf. da Silva et al., 2008; Experiments 2 and 3),
Kincaid et al. (2015) transilluminated both response keys white in the T
phase. During the AR phase, with DRO schedules in effect on both
response keys, one of the keylights remained white and the other was
changed to red. In the RT phase, both keylights again were white. Using
this procedure it was possible to compare directly resurgence under
conventional stimulus conditions (white lights in each phase were the
same, what might be labeled AAA) to that produced by an ABA renewal
procedure (white-red-white in T, AR, and RT phases, respectively).
Resurgence occurred under both stimulus conditions; however, the
added ABA renewal procedure produced far more resurgence (i.e., far
more responses in extinction) than did the AAA conventional stimulus
condition resurgence procedure. Using the same concurrent resurgence
procedure as Kincaid et al., during the RT phase, Nighbor et al. (2017a)
associated one of the alternatives with a novel stimulus in both the AR
and RT phases (creating an ABC resurgence test) while the stimulus
associated with the other response key remained as it had been during
the T and AR phases (an AAA resurgence test). Fig. 4 shows response
rates per minute on both the AAA and ABC target response keys
averaged across the last six AR phase and across the last six (Pigeons
3181 and 9553) or five (Pigeon 2748) RT sessions. Each pigeon
responded more frequently during the RT phase on the response key
associated with AAA than on the concurrently available one associated
with ABC resurgence, again suggesting the importance of stimulus
K.A. Lattal et al.
Fig. 4. Mean responses per minute on either target response key for each of three pigeons
during the AR and RT phases of a concurrent ABC AAA resurgence procedure.
conditions in resurgence.
A final observation on this latter topic comes from the experiment
previously described in the section on Extinction of the alternative
response as a defining feature of resurgence in which signaling reinforcer
availability for the alternative response resulted in resurgence of the
target response. As noted, from the standpoint of reinforcement
availability, conditions did not worsen relative to the previous condi-
tion, but simply adding a stimulus correlated with nonreinforcement
was sufficient to evoke resurgence.
9. Conclusion: refining the definition
The definition of any behavioral phenomenon must navigate
between precision and generality. It must be consistent with extant
data, but at the same time cannot be so precise as to constrain the
phenomenon within narrow limits of only what is known. Common
features of the resurgence definitions reviewed in the Definitions of
resurgence section were the topographical and temporal characteristics
of the resurgent behavior, establishment of and subsequent frequency
reduction of the target response, extinction of the alternative response
as the occasion for resurgence, and the role of stimulus variables in
resurgence. Some of those definitions go back to the early days of
resurgence research and thus are unsurprisingly out of tune with more
contemporary findings. Considering these features in light of the
current understanding of the controlling variables of resurgence
suggests a definition along the following lines: Resurgence currently
can be understood as the transient recurrence, with consideration of the
stimulus context, of some dimension of previously established but not
currently occurring activity when reinforcement conditions of current
behavior are worsened. This definition exorcises resurgence from the
metaphorical death grip that extinction has held over it by not
mentioning either why the reappearing behavior is not presently there
or limiting the conditions that might evoke its reappearance to the
absence of reinforcement of the alternative response. The definition
also captures the transience of resurgence and alludes to “activity”
rather than “response,” allowing for the possibility of operants not
defined as discrete responses as well as other measures of resurgence
such as latency or response topography variation. And, lastly, but
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Behavioural Processes 141 (2017) 85–91
importantly, it allows a role for stimulus variables in resurgence.
Definitions of behavioral phenomena are always works in progress
because research on those phenomena always is a work in progress.
Indeed, the goal of definition is not to achieve the impossible of
developing the definition of something. Rather it is to articulate a useful
definition consistent with what is known, which both stimulates further
experimentation and also allows the results to coalesce around a
common framework, while at the same time being sufficiently circum-
spect to allow the understanding of the phenomenon to emerge from an
experimental analysis of its controlling variables instead of a priori
pronouncements about the nature and limits of those variables. It is in
this spirit that we offer the present review and the definition that
emerges from it.
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