The effects long conditioning periods can have on spontaneous recovery
In an article I recently read called “Does the time-span of conditioning affect spontaneous recovery after extinction?”, the focus is on how the duration and intensity of conditioning can impact how easily a behavior returns after extinction. What the study found was that behaviors that were learned over a longer period of time were more likely to reappear, despite being previously extinguished. This means that the memory of the behavior is not erased, but rather suppressed. The irony of the word "extinction" being used to describe the actions taken on these behaviors is that it does not really make them extinct. The longer it takes to build a behavior affects how long that behavior might stay suppressed.
When you look at this finding and apply it to the real world, it can really start to make you think. When it comes to things like exposure therapy, a person’s fears are often confronted within a controlled setting. The issue lies in the fact that some people’s fears might be very long-standing and have happened over a vast variety of environments, making the extinction of that fear take a lot more time and effort. The scale at which the fear is being confronted is a lot smaller than the scale it was fostered in. To effectively use extinction as a method, it would require being implemented across many different settings, environments, and contexts. While that is not always practical for therapists, it would provide better results and be more effective in keeping old fears from resurfacing.
Source:
Priestley, I., & Harris, J. A. (2022a). Does the time-span of conditioning affect spontaneous recovery after extinction? Behavioural Processes, 196, 104601. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2022.104601
Your post raises some fascinating points about the persistence of learned behavior, especially the idea that extinction doesn’t erase, but suppresses. The study’s findings align with what we see in real-world scenarios, like exposure therapy, where deeply ingrained fears are harder to "unlearn." It makes me wonder: Could this explain why relapse happens in anxiety disorders or even addiction? If conditioning is context-dependent, maybe therapy needs a more "generalized" approach, like virtual reality or real-life exposure across diverse settings, to mimic the original learning scale.
ReplyDeleteThe irony of "extinction" as a term is spot-on! It’s more like putting a behavior in hibernation, waiting for stress or a familiar trigger to revive it. Your point about practicality for therapists is crucial, too. How do we balance thoroughness with feasibility? Would love to hear your thoughts on whether intermittent "booster" sessions could help maintain suppression long-term. Great read!