Efeitos da supressão da resposta alvo a partir do uso de timeout na ressurgência do comportamento em ratos

Abstract

Resurgence is the behavioral phenomenon that occurs when a target response, previously suppressed, reappears following the devaluation of an alternative response. Extinction is the procedure most commonly used to suppress the target response; however, new studies have sought to understand the effects of punishment procedures on resurgence, especially negative punishment, using time-out. The present study aimed to investigate whether the continuous suppression of the target response by an aversive contingency is sufficient to override the resurgence effect induced by the impoverishment of the alternative response. For this purpose, six rats were subjected to a three-phase resurgence procedure. In Phase 1, the target response was reinforced on a Variable Interval (VI) 10-s schedule. In Phase 2, for all subjects, the target response continued to produce reinforcement but also yielded negative punishment (time-out) with a probability of 0.5 and a duration of 30 s, while the alternative response was reinforced on a VI 10-s schedule. In Phase 3, both responses were placed on extinction; however, the target response continued to produce the punishment contingency until the end of this phase. Results indicated that the time-out functioned as an effective suppressor of the target response, and no resurgence of the response was observed during the test phase for any of the subjects. The results suggest that the removal of the timeout procedure might have an important role in the production of resurgence. The possible variables that influenced this outcome and its implication to the resurgence theories were discussed.