title: Experimental renewal in human participants.
abstract: Two experiments with human participants are presented that differentiate renewal from other behavioral effects that can produce a response after extinction. Participants played a video game and learned to suppress their behavior when sensor stimuli predicted an attack. Contexts (A, B, & C) were provided by fictitious galaxies where the game play took place. In Experiment 1, participants who received conditioning in A, extinction in B, and testing in A showed some context specificity of conditioning during extinction and a recovery of suppression on test. Experiment 2 demonstrated recovery of extinguished responding when participants were conditioned in A, extinguished in B, and tested in C, a third, neutral context. The experiment also demonstrated that the context of extinction did not control performance by becoming inhibitory. Results are discussed in terms of mechanisms that can produce a response recovery after extinction. The experiments demonstrated a renewal effect: a response recovery that was not attributable to the contexts acting as simple conditioned stimuli and is the first work with human participants to conclusively do so.
authors.affiliation: Department of Basic Psychological Processes and Development, Avenida de Tolosa, 70, University of the Basque Country, San Sebastin, Spain. drjbn@hotmail.com
authors.forename: James Byron
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.forename: María del Carmen
authors.initials: Mdel C
authors.lastname: Sanjuan
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vadillo-Ruiz
authors.forename: Joana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pérez
authors.forename: Samuel P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: León
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000502:physiology*; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology*; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation; D018910:Video Games; D055815:Young Adult