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The Reinstatement Effect in Human Predictive Learning: Contextual Modulation and the Impact of Extinction Reminders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2018

A. Matías Gámez Open the ORCID record for A. Matías Gámez [Opens in a new window]  and
Rodolfo Bernal-Gamboa
A. Matías Gámez*
Affiliation:
Universidad de Cádiz (Spain)
Rodolfo Bernal-Gamboa
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico)
*
*A. M. Gámez is now at the Universidad de Jaén (Spain) Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to A. M. Gámez. Departamento de Psicología de la Universidad de Jaén (Spain). E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

One of the most relevant phenomena both from a theoretical and clinical perspective is extinction. In particular, several researchers are interested in the response recovery effects from extinction. Reinstatement is an effect that has been proposed as a laboratory model to study relapse from extinction-based therapeutic treatments. We designed two experiments with humans to evaluate the reinstatement effect in a predictive learning task. In both experiments, participants learned a specific relationship between two cues (X and Y) and two outcomes (O1 and O2) during the first phase. Throughout extinction, both cues were presented without outcomes. After an exposure to the original outcomes, reinstatement of the first-learned information was observed during testing in both experiments. However, we found that the reinstatement effect was contextual modulated (Experiment 1; ηp2 = .78, 90% CI [.48, .86], p < .0001). Furthermore, in Experiment 2 we showed a reduction of reinstatement when an extinction reminder was used ηp2 = .45, 90% CI [.07, .65], p = .012. Theoretical implications are discussed, and some potential uses are mentioned.

Keywords

extinction-cuepredictive learningreinstatementrelapse
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 21 , 2018 , E52
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2018 

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Footnotes

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, (Grant PSI2014–52263–C2–1–P), and by Junta de Andalucía, Spain, Research Grant HUM–642. Contributions by Rodolfo Bernal-Gamboa to this research were supported by Dirección General de Asuntos Académicos de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico, (PAPIIT IA302818).

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