Spontaneous recovery

Not to be confused with Spontaneous remission.

Spontaneous recovery is a phenomenon of learning and memory that was first named and described by Ivan Pavlov in his studies of classical (Pavlovian) conditioning. In that context, it refers to the re-emergence of a previously extinguished conditioned response after a delay.[1] Such a recovery of "lost" behaviors can be observed within a variety of domains, and the recovery of lost human memories is often of particular interest.[2]

  1. ^ Benjamin, L.T. (2007). A Brief History of Modern Psychology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
  2. ^ Greene, R. L. (1992). Human memory: Paradigms and Paradoxes. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.