Spontaneous recovery is purportedly one of those principles of learning that 
would seem to affirm the idea that once behavior is learned,it remains 
permanent.The spontaneous recovery paradigm -keeping classical conditioning in 
focus- is that after a period of extinction the amount of trials needed to 
re-establish the conditioned response will be far less than the original trials 
to criteria.But is this
a continuation of past conditioning history or simply new learning? The 
nomenclature spontabeous recovery would seem to imply thal almost "magically" 
what was extinguished has resurfaced when in reality it is a new conditioning 
process. I have the same issue with the term "relapse" re addictive behavior.
When we say that someone is going into relapse the assumption is
that this is a continuation of past conditioning history.The fact is that 
"relapse" behavior is an entirely new behavior (similarly to the past of 
course) but could be a function of entirely different conditioning 
parameters.Ater all,there is such a thing as "one-trial" learning and 
state-dependent learning.Spontaneous recovery and relapse would also seem to 
imply a deterministic aspect to human life ubdermining the human capacity for 
multiple choices.I suspect that what we mean by spontaneous recovery and its 
human cousin "relapse" are manifestations of a repressed need.
There are three terms that would behove us to extinguish(no pun intended) from 
the behavoral science vocabulary namey race,intelligence,and relapse.

In a theoretical psychology frame of mind,
Michael "omnicentric" Sylvester,PhD
Daytona Beach,Florida

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