1. Chapter 8 Extinction

2. What IS extinction? Well, when you think about the role or reinforcement, you realize that reinforcement is the “jet fuel” that keeps behaviors going. Without reinforcement, there would be nothing supporting the behavior And it would.... die out!

3. Extinction is: The nonreinforcement of a previously reinforced response, the result of which is a decrease in the strength of that response You can use extinction (taking away the reinforcer) as another way to reduce behavior besides punishment Let’s think of a couple of examples before we move on!

4. Side effects of extinction The good news is that you have another tool in your belt to reduce unwanted behavior The bad news is that using it has side effects, just like we will see with punishment

5. Side effects of extinction: Extinction Burst Increase in Variability Emotional Behavior Aggression Resurgence Depression

6. Resistance to Extinction When you reinforce any behavior, they way you have done it will affect the persistence of that behavior Let’s think of some VERY persistent behaviors –Gambling –Begging –???

7. Resistance to Extinction It is the extent to which responding persists after an extinction procedure has been implemented In plain English, this means that it is how long the behavior continues after you have taken away the reinforcer So what factors affect just how persistent a behavior will be?

8. What factors affect persistence? The schedule of reinforcement you used –Partial Reinforcement Effect: behavior that has been maintained on an intermittent (partial) reinforcment schedule will extinguish more slowly than behavior that has been maintained on a continuous schedule Ex. Coke machine vs. slot machine

9. More factors: History of reinforcement Magnitude of the reinforcer Degree of deprivation Previous experience with extinction Distinctive signal for extinction

10. Do responses weaken and die easily? No! They tend to weaken a little more each time they occur –Example: If you are no longer reinforcing tantrum- throwing, the child is unlikely to give up after the first episode It will take several times of ignoring the tantrum before it is likely to permanently weaken. Even then, it might reoccur occasionally without warning!

11. Spontaneous Recovery The reappearance of an extinguished response following a rest period after extinction –This is likely to happen through several extinction sequences before the behavior is finally eliminated –Even after it seems to have been eliminated, a behavior can return unexpectedly –Is anything (once learned) ever totally forgotten?

12. Want to make extinction more effective? How about reinforcing a replacement behavior at the same time as you are trying to extinguish an unwanted behavior?? If you try this strategy, you are using...

13. DRO D ifferential R einforcement of O ther Behavior –Reinforcement of any behavior other than the target behavior that is being extinguished –Can you think of examples to illustrate this procedure? –Why do you think it is better than extinction alone?

14. DRI Another variation on DRO is DRI: – D ifferential R einforcement of I ncompatible Behavior This procedure involves reinforcing a behavior that is specifically incompatible with the target behavior Example: Reinforcing anything other than arguing behavior is DRO while reinforcing cooperative behaviors is DRI

15. Generalization and Discrimination Stimulus Generalization is the tendency for an operant response to be emitted in the presence of a stimulus that is similar to the discriminative stimulus for that response – Example: If you have learned to beg for candy in a grocery store, you might also do it in a convenience store Stimulus Discrimination is the tendency for an operant response to be emitted more in the presence of one stimulus than another

16. Discrimination Training While the discriminitive stimulus signals that reinforcement is available, all other stimuli become signals that reinforcement will NOT be available. These other stimuli are called “ discriminitive stimuli for extinction”