The control response in assessing resurgence: Useful or compromised tool?

ABSTRACT

Resurgence experiments sometimes include an operandum on which a history of reinforcement has not been experimentally established. The purpose of this control operandum is to rule out a generalized increase in responding when the alternative response is extinguished as being the cause of the resurgent target response. A review of the results of experiments conducted with both nonhumans and humans in which a control operandum was included shows that control- operandum responding is more common in the latter and almost nonexistent in the former. Both the presence and absence of responding on the control operandum, however, are subject to multiple interpretations thereby rendering it a compromised tool. Alternatives to using a control operandum to rule out extinction induction as the basis for resurgence include a preresurgence test control procedure and a differential resurgence procedure.