Northern Michigan University
Project Title: Effects of Gradual and Blocked Context Fading on Operant Renewal in Humans
Nicole Markofski earned her B.S. degrees in Biology and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh in 2021. After discovering an interest in behavioral science, she returned and earned her B.A. degree in Psychology in 2024. Since beginning her graduate training in the M.S. in Psychology program at Northern Michigan University, Nicole has focused on designing psychological research, creating experimental software, and developing a record of scholarship under the mentorship of Drs. Cory and Forrest Toegel. Her main research interests include developing and refining strategies to treat severe behavior, promote procedural fidelity, and mitigate relapse.
In some circumstances, such as those in which socially defined problematic behavior (e.g., substance abuse) is effectively suppressed by an intervention, the recurrence – or relapse – of that behavior is undesirable. Renewal is a subtype of relapse that occurs when a response that is reinforced in one context and suppressed in another context, returns to a relatively high rate when the original context is restored. Because the generalization of treatment effects from clinical settings to other environments is therapeutically relevant, it would be worthwhile to evaluate strategies capable of mitigating renewal.
Nicole’s thesis is a human-operant translational study that investigates effects of three context fading procedures on the mitigation of renewal of suppressed operant behavior. This study uses a between-groups design to evaluate the mitigation of renewal in a three-phase A-B-A renewal procedure in which the stimulus associated with extinction (the B Phase) fades gradually from a unique stimulus to the stimulus used in acquisition and test phases (Phase A; Gradual Fade group), fades in large steps from a unique stimulus to the stimulus associated with acquisition and test phases (Blocked Fade group), or fades gradually from a unique stimulus to another unique stimulus (Novel Fade group). Results from each fading group will be compared against a group that is exposed to a Standard A-B-A renewal procedure. This study aims to evaluate renewal mitigation in a safe and highly controlled translational laboratory setting.
This SABA grant will support Nicole’s work by providing study equipment and materials and travel funding to present her results at ABAI’s annual 2026 convention in San Francisco, CA.
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