Abstract
Renewal refers to the relapse of a previously reduced response following a context change, and the occurrence of renewal is often countertherapeutic in clinical settings. In the extant literature, renewal has most often been studied following response suppression by extinction or differential reinforcement of alternative behavior. We conducted two human-operant experiments to evaluate ABA and ABC renewal following the suppression of a response by a fixed-time (FT) schedule of point delivery (commonly referred to as noncontingent reinforcement in clinical settings). During baseline, clicking on a moving circle was reinforced with one point according to a random-interval (RI) 5-s schedule in context A. During the FT phase, one point was delivered every 5 s in context B. In the renewal test phase, the FT 5-s schedule remained, and the background color of the screen returned to the baseline context (ABA renewal; Experiment 1) or changed to a third, novel context (ABC renewal; Experiment 2). We investigated within-subject repeatability of renewal using a six-phase reversal design. Renewal occurred in the first iteration of the three-phase arrangement for 11 of 12 participants. ABA renewal was repeated for two of six participants and occurred in the second iteration only for one participant. ABC renewal was repeated for five of six participants. These results extend the literature by demonstrating renewal of responses, previously decreased using FT schedules, following the reintroduction of a previous context or the presentation of a new context. Future research should investigate the occurrence and mitigation of renewal during time-based schedules.
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Data Availability
Data and materials are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Brianna G. Sarno and Matthew Kloska for their assistance with the data collection for this project.
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This project was funded by the Department of Psychology at West Virginia University.
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The first author drafted the method section, the results section for Experiment 1, and the general discussion; the second author drafted the result section for Experiment 2, and the third author drafted the introduction section. All authors made significant contributions to the development of the research question and design as well as the execution, data analysis, interpretation, and writing of the studies included in this manuscript. All authors contributed substantive edits to all sections of the article.
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The human-subject research procedures in these experiments were approved by the Institutional Review Board at West Virginia University and were in compliance with the BACB Professional and Ethical Compliance Code for Behavior Analysts. All participants consented to participate in this study. All participants consented to have their data included in a publication.
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Finch, K.R., Kestner, K.M. & Amanieh, H. ABA and ABC Renewal during an Ongoing Fixed-Time Schedule. Psychol Rec 73, 105–117 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-022-00513-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-022-00513-1