Renewal of cue-elicited urge to smoke: implications for cue exposure treatment.
The effects of cue exposure therapy are limited, because renewal after extinction is an important source of relapse. In this study, 33 smokers were exposed to a cue predicting smoking availability and a cue predicting smoking unavailability in one context (acquisition context A). Following extinction in another context (extinction context B), a test for renewal took place in the original acquisition context A (i.e. ABA renewal). Urge to smoke was measured using a Visual Analogue Scale. Renewal of differential conditioned urge responding occurred when participants were tested in the acquisition context, while differential urge responding remained extinguished when tested in the extinction context. This experiment provides evidence that ABA renewal occurred in smokers. Clinical implications are discussed.
Thewissen
Roy
R
Department of Medical, Clinical and Experimental Psychology, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. r.thewissen@psychology.unimaas.nl
Snijders
Steffie J B D
SJ
Havermans
Remco C
RC
van den Hout
Marcel
M
Jansen
Anita
A
D000328:Adult; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D003463:Cues; D005108:Extinction, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology