Efeito da punição com timeout de uma resposta alternativa na ressurgência de um comportamento previamente extinto

Abstract

Resurgence is the behavioral phenomenon of reappearance of a target response, previously extinguished, after devaluation of an alternative. Traditionally, the alternative response has its maintenance conditions changed by extinction procedures, however, little is known about the effects of using other devaluation procedures such as timeout, a form of negative punishment used in applied situations. The present work aimed to evaluate the effect of punishing the alternative response with timeout on the resurgence of the behavior. Two four-phase experiments were performed. Experiment 1: In Phase 1, a target response was reinforced in a 10 s VI. In Phase 2, the target response was extinguished while an alternative response began to produce reinforcers in a VI 10 s. In Phase 3, a timeout contingency (50 s) was superimposed on the reinforcement contingency in force. In Phase 4, both responses were extinguished. Experiment 2: phases 1, 2 and 4 were similar to those of Experiment 1, with the only difference being that the sessions started with a blackout period and had a reduced timein time from the end of phase 2. In phase 3, a timeout contingency (30 s) was superimposed on the alternative reinforcement. The results indicated that the timeout devalued the alternative option in both experiments and induced resurgence for all (Experiment 1) and the majority (Experiment 2) of the subjects. Possible variables that may have led to these results are discussed.