Operant vs. respondent extinction, as procedure and as process

"Extinction" is one word doing two jobs in two kinds of conditioning. Once you can tell which job it is doing in a sentence, most questions on this topic become straightforward.

Why it matters

Extinction shows up in nearly every behavior-reduction plan you will write, usually alongside differential reinforcement. If you withhold the wrong consequence, nothing changes, and staff conclude that "extinction doesn't work." If you don't warn caregivers about an extinction burst, they may give in at the worst moment and teach the behavior to come back stronger.

Respondent extinction matters too. Fears and other conditioned emotional responses weaken through the same basic operation, and exposure-based procedures rely in part on it. Expect practice vignettes that ask you to name the operation, name the effect, or spot a plan that only looks like extinction.

Key ideas

• Procedure vs. process. The procedure is what the behavior analyst arranges. The process is the resulting change in behavior over time. "We started extinction on Monday" names a procedure; "the behavior extinguished by Friday" names a process.
• Operant extinction (procedure): a response that used to produce a reinforcer no longer produces it. The behavior still happens; the consequence that maintained it is withheld.
• Operant extinction (process): the response gradually decreases in the future, often toward its level before reinforcement.
• Respondent extinction (procedure): the conditioned stimulus (CS) is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus (US).
• Respondent extinction (process): the CS gradually loses its ability to elicit the conditioned response (CR).
• Function decides what to withhold. Operant extinction only works when you withhold the reinforcer that actually maintains the behavior. Ignoring attention-maintained behavior is extinction; ignoring escape-maintained behavior while the task ends is not.
• Extinction is not punishment or forgetting. Nothing is added or taken away contingent on the response; the old consequence simply stops. Forgetting is a loss of responding over time when there is no chance to respond. In extinction, the response occurs and goes unreinforced.

Definitions

• Operant extinction: withholding the reinforcer that has been maintaining a response (procedure), so that the response occurs less often over time (process).
• Respondent extinction: repeatedly presenting a CS without the US (procedure), so that the CS elicits the CR less and less (process).
• Extinction burst: an increase in how often or how intensely the response occurs soon after operant extinction begins. New or more varied responses may also appear.
• Spontaneous recovery: a brief return of a previously extinguished response, typically after a break, even though extinction conditions continue. It was first described in Pavlov's respondent work and also occurs with operant behavior.
• Resistance to extinction: how long, or how many responses, a behavior persists once reinforcement stops. Intermittent reinforcement usually produces more resistance than continuous reinforcement.

Examples from a session

In each case, the procedure fits the function. Planned ignoring would do nothing for Ana or Wei, because attention isn't what maintains their behavior.

Common mistakes / exam traps

• Mixing up the two levels. Read the stem: does it describe what staff did (procedure) or what happened to the behavior (process)?
• Mixing up the two kinds. Operant extinction targets a response-consequence relation. Respondent extinction targets a CS-US relation and involves no reinforcer at all.
• Calling any ignoring "extinction." If the maintaining reinforcer still arrives, through a peer's laughter, a removed demand, or sensory stimulation, the procedure is not extinction.
• Reading a burst as failure. An early increase is common and usually temporary. That is why behavior plans typically prepare caregivers for a burst and pair extinction with reinforcement for a replacement behavior.
• Confusing respondent extinction with habituation. Habituation is a decrease in an unlearned response to a stimulus presented over and over. Respondent extinction weakens a conditioned response because the CS is no longer paired with the US.

Quick check

Related topics

• Respondent vs. operant conditioning (B.3)
• Positive vs. negative reinforcement (B.4)
• Positive vs. negative punishment (B.5)
• Simple schedules of reinforcement: FR, VR, FI, and VI (B.9)
• Differential reinforcement (DRA, DRO, DRL, DRH) with and without extinction (G.2)
• Planning for unwanted effects of reinforcement, extinction, and punishment (H.4)