Understanding behavior extinction, extinction burst, and spontaneous recovery.
An extinction burst can be described simply: "if this has always worked, it always will work, and if it does not, I just need to try harder." For example, if you walk into a dark room and flip a light switch, the light will turn on. What happens when the light does not turn on? Do you immediately check if your power is still on, or do you change the light bulb? Not likely; you most likely flip the light switch a few times before giving up and trying something else. That is an extinction burst.
Let us use an example with your dog. If every time your dog jumps, you reinforce the behavior (eye contact, talk to, play, wrestle, pet, pick up, etc.) they will continue to jump. But if you stop reinforcing the behavior, your dog will not just immediately stop jumping. They will think: “I just need to try harder!” They will jump higher, maybe more frantically, maybe try nipping or play biting you. They will have an extinction burst. To get through the extinction burst, you must have a plan, be prepared to follow through, and be more stubborn than your dog.
It is hard, and sometimes extremely hard, to ignore behavior – especially with extinction burst. Let us go back to our light switch example… If while flipping the switch over and over, the light turns on, we learn that if I try harder then it will work. Not that the bulb needs replacing, or you have a power outage, or even that maybe the wiring is a little faulty. You do not need to find a different way to get the light on, because of your stubbornness you were able to turn on the light. When during the extinction burst you reinforce the behavior with your dog (give them the positive or negative attention they are looking for) they will learn that if they try harder and are more stubborn, they will get what they want. The next time you attempt to ignore the undesired behavior, it will take longer, and require you to be even more stubborn to see the extinction burst through to the end. This is even harder when you have multiple people trying to train the dog.
EXTINCTION
Extinction is the disappearance of a behavior after a reinforcement is removed. Because the conditioned behavior only occurred in the first place because of the reinforcement, the behavior then gradually disappears if it is not reinforced again (except for extinction burst). For example, if you get paid for your job and all of the sudden you stopped getting paid, you will eventually stop working because there would be no incentive (reinforcement) to continue working.
EXTINCTION BURST
Extinction burst is when the conditioned behavior frequency increases after a reinforcement is removed (e.g. if you get paid for your job and then all of the sudden you stopped getting paid, you may try to work really hard for the next couple days before finally deciding to quit working)
SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY
In addition, there is a phenomenon called spontaneous recovery (or “I thought we got fixed this!”) during which some of the conditioned behavior may suddenly appear again. Extinction does not erase the memory, during extinction there is new learning, but the old memory is still somewhere in the brain. Eventually with many training sessions (depending on the severity and length of the behavior), the bad behavior will become less and less prominent.
Extinction does not last forever. If the reinforcement resumes, then the conditioned behavior can also resume.
